Middle Eastern Salad

I am not too fond of salads (unless it's fruit salad) and I'm definitely not proud to say that. I would love to include fresh greens in my diet and I think this recipe is a good start. The only salad that I ever enjoyed was this Middle Eastern salad that a Syrian friend of mine prepared for me a couple of years ago. She explained to me that the salad was of Lebanese origin. However, the name of that dish did not stick to my mind as the dish did. I initially did not want to eat it, but took some only to taste, and to my surprise I ended up liking that salad so much so that I took some home with me. It was very flavourful and she served this salad with something that looked like a pizza (a delicious oven-baked flatbread with a filling on top) and dolmas, that means stuffed and cooked vine leaves.

 

Mediterrenean salads are well-seasoned unlike the fresh/raw and unseasoned salads that you get here and I figured that must be the reason I liked this salad so much. You could reduce or increase the amount of vegetables and seasoning as per your liking (this is not a baking recipe after all). I personally modified this (I skipped the tomato for example as we have a family member who does not tolerate tomatoes so well). Because of the generous amount of chickpeas, this salad is very hearty and filling and can be eaten just the way it is as a snack, or as a side dish or stuffing to pita bread.

Salad:
2 1/2 cups boiled (or canned) chickpeas
1 cup parsley
50 g feta cheese (adjust)
1 red onion
1-2 tomato (optional)
2 garlic cloves

Dressing:
1-2 tbs olive oil
1/2 tbs lemon juice (or to taste)
Salt and pepper to taste

I prefer to prepare the chickpeas from scratch but you could use canned chickpeas if it's more convenient to you. To prepare the chickpeas from scratch, wash and soak 1 cup of chickpeas covered for about 10 hours. Drain and boil the chickpeas (in at least 4 times as much water as chickpeas) with salt. Boiling them should take about 45-50 minutes at medium to high heat. Once cooked, drain and put aside to cool at room temperature until needed.

Chop parsley finely with a food scissor or knife. The parsley was instead added in generous quantity. Chop the red onion finely and put aside both in a bowl. If you want to add tomatoes, chop and add them in the same bowl.  

You could cut the feta cheese in dices or crumble them into the salad. Feta cheese is quite sour and saltish in taste hence I personally prefer to crumble the feta cheese in the salad (you wont react to the saltiness as much then).

Crush and grind the garlic into a fine paste. We love garlic and are quite indulgent with garlic in our cooking but eating them raw, even in a salad, is quite unthinkable to me. I had some roasted garlic (infused in olive oil). I had prepared this a couple of days ago to bake Focaccia and had enough left to use in this salad.

Place all the vegetables in a bowl. Prepare the dressing by whisking lemon juice, salt, pepper and olive oil. Add the ground garlic in the dressing. Drizzle the dressing over the vegetables and toss them. Add the feta cheese and the chickpeas. Gently toss and serve.