Tuesday, August 02, 2005

CopyCat: Pertelote's tuna and chickpea salad


This is my - may I say, rather successful - attempt at Pertelote's lovely tuna and chickpea salad. The recipe is available on Pertelote's blog (scroll down to May 15th). I cheated a little and used canned chickpeas instead, and replaced sherry vinegar with a dash of wine vinegar. And this was not in order to improve on the recipe - it was flawless - just I had no time to soak and cook the legumes and I didn't have any sherry vinegar in my cupboard.

Tuna & chickpea salad
(Kikerherne-tuunikalasalat)

400 grams canned chickpeas, rinsed and drained
a jar of roasted peppers, cut into pieces
6 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 Tbsp wine vinegar
1 onion, finely chopped
1 tsp cumin seeds, crushed finely
0.5 tsp fennel seeds, crushed finely
0.5 tsp chilli flakes
2 tsp smoked pimento paprika powder
250 grams canned tuna
a bunch of fresh flatleaf parsley, finely chopped

Fry the chopped onions in the olive oil until slightly opaque. Add the spices (reserving half of the smoked paprika for later) and heat gently to release the aromas.
Mix all ingredients in a large bowl.
Serve either on a buffet table or as a light lunch with bread and salad.

Very, very nice.. I usually make hummus or spicy chickpea curry with chickpeas, and canned tuna to make quick sandwich filling with mayo or then pasta with tuna and tomatoes. I do occasionally combine these two for a sandwich filling that's ideal for tortilla wraps. This tuna and chickpea salad was a lovely and interesting way to combine these two ingredients. Definitely a keeper.

Thanks Pertelote for a fab recipe, and to the passionate cook for writing about the dish in the context of Twickenham foodbloggers' meeting and thus enabling me to find it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on making a successful dish! I get excited when my dishes come out well. ;-))))

Your salad does look yummy!

My sister loves chickpeas. If it's easy, I think that I'll try to make this salad some time soon.

Best,
Paz

Pille said...

Thanks - and it was yummy (thanks again, Pertelote)! Hope your sister likes it, too.
I'm off to Estonia next week, and plan to serve this when I meet up with old friends. Just have to remember to take my smoked pimiento jar with me..