This is a recipe I based off of usali, a South Indian bean salad. Usali is usually made from kala chana or black chickpeas. You can buy them dried and they have a nice earthy flavor to them. The downside though is that they take quite a bit to cook. This is what they look like and if you do want to try the recipe, here’s my mom’s.
I modified the usali recipe to include chickpeas instead of kala chana and some vegetables I had in the fridge: string beans, red pepper and purple onions. It’s so bright and colorful, kind of like a bowl full of summer. I made this dish for a barbecue at my friend Karol’s.
The salad is flavored with coconut, fried spices, curry leaves, lemon and cilantro.
I love crunchy salads and this one does not disappoint.
Ingredients
1 cup chickpeas, drained and washed
1/2 pound string beans, blanched, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 red bell pepper, medium chop
1/4 red onion, thinly sliced half circles
1/3 cup fresh shredded coconut
1 tablespoon oil
1 pinch hing (asafeotida)
1/2 teaspoon mustard seed
1 dried red chili, broken in half
4 fresh curry leaves, chopped
juice of 1/2 lemon
cilantro for garnish
salt to taste
Method:
Blanch the string beans in boiling water so they are still bright green and have crunch to them. Drain and pour them into a bowl of ice water so they don’t cook further.
Wash the chickpeas thoroughly until water is clear.
Place the chickpeas in a bowl with the string beans, red bell pepper, onions and coconut.
In a very small pan, heat oil under medium heat. Put in hing and mustard seeds and cover. When the mustard seeds start to sputter, turn the heat down a little and put in chili and curry leaves and mix. Cook for about 30 seconds. Turn off heat and pour over chickpeas and vegetables. Add lemon juice, coconut and cilantro and mix. You can add salt to your taste.
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Lovely! I love South-Indian food. Dosa is my favourite. I am going to tr this chickpea recipe!
This sounds super tasty! An Indian restaurant in my town had something vaguely similar to this on Valentine’s day and it was so amazing. Thanks for the recipe!
I made this tonight for supper! Very tasty. Three notes: I used a shallot instead of a quarter of a red onion and it was too pungent (my fault). Also, your step calls for chiles but they’re not in the ingredients. I crumbled one dried red chile and it was just the right level of spiciness. Lastly, I just used a whole 15.5-ounce can of chickpeas, drained, and about 3/4 pound of green beans. Perfect balance! Thanks for the recipe, Chitra!
Heather – thanks so much for your comment and have added the red chili into the ingredients (good eye!). One random tip to reduce pungency of onion is to put the cut rings in a strainer and pour boiling water over them. I picked that up randomly from a Deborah Madison recipe from a while back. You could even pour the boiling water from the string beans over them in this case. Glad you enjoyed the recipe!
I’ll have to try this.
I haven’t tried this one. By looking at this, I’m urging to eat one!
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