Carrot-Chickpea Salad

This is one of my favorite cold combinations and ranks up there along with the various wheat berry and bulgur salads I have concocted in my lifetime.  With a decidedly Middle Eastern flair, it could easily accompany a meze or even stand alone as a meal on its own, as it did for us earlier this week.  The recipe is an adaptation of something I came accross in Food and Wine last week.  The cilantro “pesto” is really something!

Ingredients:

- 1 lb. carrots, coarsely grated (for the record: most delicious way to eat raw carrots)

- 2 c. cooked chick peas (preferrably from dried for textural purposes)

- 1 small bunch of cilantro, stems and leaves, roughly chopped

- 1/4 c. nuts or seeds (I used sunflower seeds), toasted

- juice of one lemon

- 1 tsp. smoked sweet paprika

- 1/4 to 1/2 tsp. cayenne, adjusting for personal taste

-1 tsp. cumin seeds, ground

- salt and freshly cracked black pepper

- olive oil

What to do…

Combine the carrots and chickpeas and set aside in a large bowl, and put everything else (except salt, pepper, and oil) into the food processor.  Pulse until chunky and there are no large cilantro stems poking around.  Then turn on the processor and add olive oil or chick pea cooking water (or as I do, a combination of the two), until a chunky paste is formed.  Mix with the chick pea & carrot mixture, garnishing with salt, pepper, and a pinch of paprika/dash of chopped cilantro for color.  Serve with some delicious whole grain pita and other various meze goods.

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