Warm Chickpea Salad with Curry and Orange

When the sky has completely lost it and thinks it has to present itself in various shades of drab, I like getting some colour into my day with the food I create. Yesterday was another one of those grey days, so I just had to make my colourful chickpea salad. It's served warm and is a great dish for winter as well as summer days. You can vary the vegetables according to season.

Before I started cooking, I was interested in finding out what was behind the name chickpea - they sure don't have anything to do with chickens. And so I found out that the name chickpea comes from the Latin "cicer", which means pea. The original word in English taken directly from French was chich, which in the mid-18th century changed to chick. This means chickpea is a pleonasm, actually meaning "pea pea".

The top of the protein ladder 

Something I didn't know: Chickpeas used to be called "poor man's meat". Like other legumes, they contain a lot of protein, even more so than meat, namely 22%, alongside 50% carbohydrates and 15% fibre. They make you feel full for a long time and promote digestion, with one caveat: our bodies absorb animal protein much better than plant-based protein, so it's wise to combine them with other proteins like wheat, potatoes or meat.

However, don't forget: contrary to animal fats, the fat in legumes consists mainly of "good" unsaturated fatty acids, which positively influence the lipoproteins (LDL, HDL, Triglyceride) and can therefore prevent cardiovascular disease.

There are a lot of vitamins in chickpeas, such as several B-vitamins, a considerable amount of vitamin A, folic acid, potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, calcium, iron and zinc. Like other legumes, chickpeas pack many secondary plant substances said to have cancer-inhibiting properties.

How do you prepare chickpeas?

Yesterday, I used organic chickpeas from the tin. Sometimes I use fresh ones and soak them overnight. You can't eat chickpeas raw, as they contain several toxic components. That's why you have to soak them or any legumes in plenty of cold water for around 12 hours before you use them. Or, alternatively, you use pre-cooked chickpeas from the tin, like I did. If you soak them overnight, you should rinse them under running water the next day. The longer you let chickpeas soak, the shorter you have to cook them afterwards.

And here is my amazing salad recipe. I use this as a side dish to chicken sometimes, and also with grilled dishes in the summer. What makes this salad so special? The curry and the orange.

logo

Chickpea Salad

Ingredients:

  • 1 tin/jar chickpeas or 400-500g fresh chickpease (soaked overnight and cooked)
  • 1 red onion
  • 1 spring onion
  • 1 orange
  • 1 zucchini
  • 1 carrot
  • 1 bunch parsley or mint
  • 2 TBSP Sonnentor's Sonnenkuss Gewürz-Blüten-Zubereitung* (spice mix) or curry powder
  • 2 garlic cloves
  • 1 red bell pepper or 150g cherry tomatoes
  • 1 TBSP butter
  • 1 TBSP oil
  • 1 TBSP balsamic vinegar for deglazing
  • 3 TBSP olive oil
  • 2 TBSP balsamic vinegar
  • salt and pepper

Preparation:

  1. Peel the onion and cut into fine rings. Peel and finely chop the garlic. Wash and deseed the pepper and cut into 1cm cubes (or wash and halve the cherry tomatoes). Wash the zucchini and cut into 1cm cubes. Wash and finely slice the spring onions. Wash, peel and grate the carrot (with a julienne or a potato peeler). Squeeze the orange. Wash, shake dry, pick and finely chop the parsley/mint.
  2. Heat up the oil and butter in a pan and fry the onion and the zucchini for 2 minutes over a high heat. Add the pepper/tomatoes, spring onion, garlic, carrot, orange juice, balsamic vinegar and spice mix or curry powder and mix well. Season with salt and pepper.
  3. Drain the chickpeas and rinse under running water. Combine with the vegetables in a bowl. Marinate with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and garnish with parsley or mint. Season again with salt and pepper, to taste, and let the salad absorb the dressing for a moment before serving.

Notes:

Curry, Muskat, Kardamom, Sonnenblumenblüten, Ringelblumen ohne Blütenköpfe, Orangen Pulver süß, Kurkuma, Chilli

Print recipe