Salad Chickpea and tuna salad

[Michi]

Chickpea and tuna salad

Makes 2 generous servings or 4–5 sides.

Served here with homemade Hummus.

Ingredients:

• 240 g cooked chickpeas. It is best to cook them from 150 g dried chickpeas, or use a 400 g can.
• 185 g canned tuna in oil
• 2 eggs
• 50 g red onion, finely sliced
• ½ medium green capsicum, 5-mm dice (macédoine)
• ½ medium red capsicum, 5-mm dice
• 2 tsp (10 ml) sherry vinegar
• 2 cloves garlic, very finely grated
• 10 g fresh parsley
• Black olives or other garnish according to preference
• Salt
• Pepper
• Baking soda

For dried chickpeas:

• 2 Bay leaves
• 1 Onion
• 4 Garlic cloves (skin on)

Method:

1. Use a needle to make a pinprick hole on the wide end and boil the eggs for 12 minutes; then put the eggs into ice water for 15 minutes.
2. Drain and rinse the chickpeas and let them dry off a little in a colander.
3. Chop onion and capsicum.
4. Drain the can of tuna and flake it, reserving the drained oil.
5. Combine 45 ml (3 tbsp) of of the drained oil (add olive oil to make up any difference, if needed), vinegar, and very finely grated garlic. Season with salt and pepper and mix well.
6. Put chickpeas, tuna, onion, and capsicum into a bowl and mix with the dressing.
7. Leave covered salad in the fridge for as long as possible. Make it in the morning to serve in the evening, or make it the day before. It’s OK to serve after an hour or two, but longer resting time is better.
8. At serving time, adjust the salad seasoning as needed.
9. Peel the eggs under running water or in a bowl of water. This makes it a lot easier to get the shell off without damage.
10. Put the salad onto a platter, sprinkle with chopped parsley, and decorate with olives sliced egg.

Notes on chickpeas:

Dried chickpeas that you cook yourself taste a lot better than the ones out of a can.

To cook chickpeas from dry, soak them overnight in about three times their volume of water. Add a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of baking soda to the soaking liquid.

Once rehydrated, thoroughly rinse off the chickpeas under cold water.

You can cook the chickpeas in a generous pot of water with two teaspoons of added salt and the bay leaves. Bring to a boil and simmer, covered with a cracked lid, until very soft. It will take 5-6 hours, possibly a bit longer. Add garlic and onion only for the final hour because, otherwise, they will disintegrate completely and make everything very cloudy.

The fast way is to cook the chickpeas is in a pressure cooker. Add chickpeas and about 2.5 times their volume in water to the pot, together with a teaspoon of salt, onion, smashed garlic cloves (skin on), and bay leaves.

Cook at full pressure for 15 minutes, then remove from heat and let the pressure drop naturally. Rinse and drain the cooked chickpeas once they have cooled off a bit. (The garlic and onion remnants will mostly float to the top of the cooking liquid and can be removed with a skimmer spoon or slotted spoon.)

Cooked chickpeas can be stored for three to four days in the fridge.