Monday, May 17, 2010

Chickpea & Black Eyed Bean Salad

A foodie on a diet!! Isn't that a tough, tough life??  Yeah, yeah,  I know I am exaggerating:-)) But it isn't easy either when you have food on your mind but not on your plate. Naw, am not starving, far from it - eating small meals and snacks all day. Healthy snacks of course. I am on the look out for the health bhi, taste bhi recipes, now more than ever. At the cost of repeating myself, like a lot of us, good, tasty food is very important to me  If I am on a diet, then it had better be low calorie tasty grub. Like this Chickpea and Black Eyed Bean Salad.

This Sanjeev Kapoor recipe was in my recipe diary since ages, but I had not made it as I was just plain lazy to take the trouble of cooking the beans separately. Its sometimes so strange that some ridiculously simple things like having 3 or 4 variety of beans at the same time in your pantry just takes ages to happen!!! Well, at last, I got the beans, soaked them and cooked them separately. Well,  it was 4 beans actually, but the third bean, the kidney beans, refused to cook well in spite of repeated attempts. I gave up!!! I forgot to get the green gram:-(. It became a Two Bean Salad instead of the original Four Bean Salad.

Again, there are no rules for making salads. Add or skip ingredients and vary the proportions of the same according to your taste and preference. A chilled salad is such a pleasure in summers, more so if its protein laden, low in fat, can be made ahead and stored. Indulge in this tongue tickling, chaat like preparation without any guilt whatsoever.


Here is what I did:

Ingredients:
Soaked and Boiled Chickpeas : 1/2 cup
Soaked and Boiled Black Eyed Beans : 1/2 Cup
Onions, finely chopped : 1/4 Cup
Fresh Tomato, de-seeded and chopped - 1/2 Cup
Fresh Coriander finely Chopped 2 tablespoons

For the dressing:
Lemon Juice: 1 tablespoon
Water - 1 Tablespoon
Chaat Masala - 1 teaspoon
Green Chillies: 2, finely chopped
Sugar - 1 teaspoon
Oil - 1 teaspoon (I haven't used any)
Salt to taste

Soak the beams separately overnight and pressure cook for 3-4 whistles, in separate containers. You may need to cook any of the beans again . Ensure that the beans are well cooked, but not overdone.

Mix together all the ingredients for the dressing and chill for at least one hour. Toss with the rest of the ingredients and serve chilled garnished with coriander leaves. Yumm!!! Can health get more lip smacking than this??

22 comments:

Sarah Naveen said...

Simply delicious and healthy..

Hari Chandana P said...

looks spicy and healthy.. thanks for the wonderful recipe.. nice click.. :)

Sushma Mallya said...

Healthy and yummy salad, would love to try this some day..

Priya Suresh said...

Nutritious and protein packed salad, looks awesome Suma..

Az said...

Protein rich salad and a perfect snack (meal?!?) for summer!! Just love it!!

Sanyukta Gour(Bayes) said...

so nutritrious and full of protiens...love it...lipsmacking and tongue tickling...yummmmmmmmmmm

Veggie Hut said...

delicious.. bowl full of protein..

panchpakwan said...

Healthy and delicious salad.

Deepti Pawar said...

I totally love bean salads. This looks perfect!

Nitha said...

Healthy and tasty salad... Looks wonderful..

Simplyfood said...

Lovely healthy salad.Beautiful colour ingredients.

deepti said...

Healthy Combo !!

Kiran said...

Very nice and healthy bean salad.

Madhuri Kumar said...

This sure looks tongue tickling! I know a salad bar in Jayanagar which makes something similar and I have it everytime we eat there. Really yumm. Your's looks just as inviting :)

SathyaSridhar said...

Woow nice n healthy protein rich bean salad dear.. daily i hv to make some salad for my hubby me too make the same way with little bit of chana take before for kuruma..

Unknown said...

Delicious looking salad,nice and tangy:)

Malar Gandhi said...

Delicious salad, looks very inviting to me...perfect for this hot summer.

Padmajha said...

As u said tasty and healthy!I love salads in any form and this looks to good..Yummmm

Unknown said...

Luv chickpeas in nay form salad sounds interesting

Sum said...

Yummy!

M D said...

Hey Suma, have been a little busy these days, so couldn't do much blog hopping. Chickpea and Black Eyed Bean Salad looks very tempting, Chat-pata!

shahana said...

Sounds easy as well as healthy dear!