Alphonso Mango and Curried Chickpea Salad
Serves: 5
Alphonso Mango is a small yellow variety of mangoes. They are more fragrant than the large reddish mangoes we usually found at local grocery stores.
I found this incredible recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi that includes a beautiful combination of spices and herbs. While it includes super healthy ingredients, it also includes 460 calories of oil along with salt and sugar! We Garden of Eydie-it by taking out the salt, oil and sugar and increasing the amount of herbs, citrus and spice. You and your body will love it
Alphonso Mango is a small yellow variety of mangoes. They are more fragrant than the large reddish mangoes we usually found at local grocery stores.
I found this incredible recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi that includes a beautiful combination of spices and herbs. While it includes super healthy ingredients, it also includes 460 calories of oil along with salt and sugar! We Garden of Eydie-it by taking out the salt, oil and sugar and increasing the amount of herbs, citrus and spice. You and your body will love it
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup dried chickpeas
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon. coriander seeds
- 1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
- ½ teaspoon cumin seeds
- 1 teaspoon curry powder (we used Madras Curry Powder)
- ½ teaspoon turmeric
- 1 large onion, thinly sliced (2 cups)
- 1 small cauliflower, broken into small florets a 1-½” dice (4 cups/400g)
- 3 or 4 Alphonso mangoes or 1 large red mango, peeled diced (3-1/4 cups or 570g)
- 1 medium serrano chili, seeded and minced
- 1-1/3 cups cilantro leaves, chopped
- ¼ cup lime juice, or more to taste
- 2 ounces baby spinach leaves
Directions
- Place the raw chickpeas in a 4-cup measuring cup, and add enough water to cover by 2-3 inches. Add 2 teaspoons of baking soda and stir. Soak overnight.
- Drain and rinse the chickpeas and place in a 3-quart saucepan filled with water to cover the chickpeas by 3”. Place over medium heat and bring to a simmer and cook for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until the chickpeas are completely soft. Drain and transfer to a large bowl. Leave somewhere warm (at this point we removed the skins falling off the beans). *See below note about cooking dried chickpeas — our chickpeas took only 15-20 minutes to cook!
- While the chickpeas are simmering, place the coriander, mustard, and cumin seeds in a 10-inch sauté pan heated over medium fire, and dry roast until they begin to pop, 1-2 minutes. Use a spice grinder or mortar and pestle and crush to a powder. Mix in the curry and turmeric powders, as well.
- Dry sauté the onions: Heat the same pan over medium heat for a minute or two, add sliced onion and stir them quickly, tossing and stirring so that the onions don’t stick to the pan. Add a couple of tablespoons of water and keep stirring for another minute. Add the spice mixture, stir, coating the onions completely, 1 minute. Cover the pan, reduce heat to low, and let the onions soften to release their natural oils, about 1 minute or so. Remove the cover, stir and cook the onions until they are lightly browned and translucent. Transfer to the bowl with the warm chickpeas and give them a stir to combine.
- Bring a 3-qt pot of water to a boil, add the cauliflower, and blanch for just 1 minute. Drain, pat dry and set aside. Heat the same pan that the onions cooked in over medium low heat. Add the cauliflower pieces and stir to coat with the spices left in the pan. Sprinkle a little water over the cauliflower and cook, stirring every 20 seconds or so, until the cauliflower is brown and coated with the spices, about 3 to 4 minutes.
- Add diced mangoes, chile, cilantro, lime juice, and spinach. Stir well and serve at once. Or chill and serve within 24 hours.
- If desired, add a pinch of salt and more lime juice to each dish before serving.
Cook's Notes: - An amazing tip: Soaking chickpeas in plenty of water with baking soda allows for the skin to come off easily once cooked, making for a more elegant dish.
- Cooking dried beans: All beans that are bought dried don’t have an expiry date, or when they were picked. The beans could be months, if not years old. We used dried chickpeas from the farmer’s market that were just picked and dried and were less than a year old. They cooked in 20 minutes, instead of the 45 minutes to 1 hour the recipe suggested. Check your beans every 20 minutes or so, just in case you have fresher chickpeas than ones that have been sitting for a long time. It makes a huge difference.
If your chickpeas are not soft within an hour, then they will never get soft and you need to get new chickpeas!
