Chick pea salad with basil & garlic

11 septembre 2007

Chick pea salad with basil & garlic

As I had made couscous for lunch (delicious by the way, I'll give you the recipe some day ;-)), I was left with half a tin of chick-peas... that's how I decided that we'd be having tapas tonight!

So we had: Chick pea salad with basil & garlic, Squid al Alioli, and cured ham on bread & French rouille.

Ingredients for two (multiply accordingly):

200g of tinned chick peas (if you use dry ones, a guess a small handful per person will do)
a small tomato
half a lime
1 garlic clove, a few basil leaves
salt, pepper, chilli flakes, olive oil

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Preparation:

First, drain the tinned chick peas, rinse briefly and drain again. Set aside in a bowl.

Deseed and finely dice the tomato (I also peeled mine, as it was a little thick-skinned, and as it was a perfectly ripe garden tomato, I simply used a knife to gently lift the skin off the flesh, and peeled it back really easily). Season with salt & pepper, and set aside.

Peel the garlic and finely chop it (I used my brand new mezzaluna herb chopper, designed by Nigella herself! :-), a brilliant wedding gift we got) - if you don't have Nigella's mezzaluna, just use any old garlic crusher, that'll do. Last, chop the basil too with the garlic. If you don't have a herb chopper, use scissors or a knife. Don't spend too long doing the basil, it loses its flavour at ligtning speed.

As soon as both ingredients are properly chopped, put them in a small bowl and add 2 tbspoons of olive oil, squeeze the juice of half a lime into the mixture, season to taste, and sprinkle with a few chilli flakes.

Remove any excess water the tomato might have produced, then add it to the chick peas, and finally, pour in the dressing and mix gently. Put it in the fridge, and take it out 15 min before serving.