Chickpea "Tuna" Salad

Ok so this salad caught my eye when I saw it on Daphne Oz's wonderful page as this lady is beautiful and very watchable. She celebrates flavour combinations and seems to come up with effortless dishes whilst giggling 4 kids.

Overtime, I have tweaked it a little but the ingredients below are not too far from the original recipe which you can find here. It's a crunchy, bright, fresh, healthy vegetarian salad and I hope you will love it as much as my family does.

This is a perfect salad to pack for lunches on the go and will keep for 3 days in the fridge with the flavours getting better each and everyday.

Photo Credit: Daphne OZ

INGREDIENTS

• 720 g Jar of good quality chickpeas or two tins if you can find the large jar
• 1 Small fennel bulb with fronds removed OR 5 sticks of Celery
• 1 lemon
• 1 shallot
• 10 fat juicy Kalamata olives
• 1 clove garlic (optional)
• 1 Avocado or a heaped scoop of Mayonaise
• 3 dashed tabasco
• 1 Large bunch of Dill, Parsley or even mint whatever you have
• 1 Tablespoon of Dijon mustard
• 1 heaped tablespoon of capers

METHOD

1. Find the largest bowl you own and drain your jar of chickpeas under the tap until the water runs clear, shake off excess water and add to the bowl.
2. Now you are going to set to squashing the chickpeas with the back of a fork, not ALL over them but about 80% this will allow the chickpeas to absorb all of the wonderful flavours you are about to add.
3. Remove the fronds from your fennel bulb and remove the core and chop into 1 cm cubes or do the same to your celery.
4. Get your olives and carefully slam them with the back of the blade of a large knife. This will allow the stones to pop out easily and you can tear your olive in half (if you have to you can add a small can of sliced green olives).
5. You need to mince your shallot into tiny, fine cubes. Add this to the bowl with your green olives and a heaped tablespoon of drained capers.
6. Get your herbs and rinse and dry..I use a huge handful. You can add as much or as little you want this for me is where the flavour of this great salad come from. I always find it hard to get huge bunches of dill but if you can just start tearing the delicate herbs into smaller bunches no need to chop with a knife. If using parsley and mint you will need to chop this finely.
7. Add a whole avocado, cubed and gently mashed along the heaped tablespoon of Dijon mustard and a few splashes of tabasco sauce.
8. Finally zest the lemon and then add all the juice of the lemon to the bowl and start to mix all the ingredients together for at least a minute combining the flavours.
9. Eat with lettuce cups or on thin seeded crackers. This can also be used as a dip or even a sandwich filling.
10. Feel free to add some anchovies and good quality flaked tuna if you have any open.
11. Enjoy!!