My friend Julie and I were talking the other day.   She was telling me of her son’s project on Israel.   Among all of her suggestions to him on how to begin researching it, she suggested he look for recipes.   Being an aware friend,  she understands the deep relationship every culture has to its food.  We as Americans,  me especially because I am a Heinz 57 – thats right, purebred mutt,  have such a blended cohesion of ethnicities to our palates, that root can sometimes be shallow.  I had pizza and spaghetti growing up.   And corned beef on rye.   I had gumbo and jambalaya.   But I mostly had meat and potatoes with some wilty lettuce salad and bread.   And Wishbone dressing bought right out of the store.   A complete mishmash of cultures.  A shallow root indeed.

We’re talking and she brings out this gorgeous cookbook called Jerusalem.   The photography is amazing, I could smell and hear the street, see the old men playing backgammon smoking their hookas in the coffeehouses.   Everything in there seemed like an “I should try this at home!” moment.   She graciously loaned me the book.   She should have gotten a time commitment.

I dove first into the salads. Since the south’s spring is brutally short leading into a brutally hot summer; this seemed appropriate.

My first go at it,  I mastered the Spiced chickpeas & fresh vegetable salad.  Super easy but not super quick unless you have knife skills. The crux of this salad are the incredible refried garbanzo beans that are coated in a perfection of a spice blend.  The original recipe calls for sugar, I eliminated that because I used a flavored vinegar I got at a local spice shop here: Red Stick Spice.   Everything else was,  well, kosher for me.

Spiced Chickpeas & Fresh Vegetable salad
1 15 oz. can of garbanzo beans, washed and drained
2 small cucumbers
2 medium tomatoes
8 oz. radishes
1 red bell pepper, seeded ribs removed
1 small red onion
2/3 oz. cilantro, coarsely chopped
1/2 oz. flat leaf parsley, coarsely chopped
8 Tablespoons olive oil
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
1 1/2 teaspoons of sherry vinegar ( I used Champagne Pear flavored)
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
1 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon ground cumin
salt and freshly ground black pepper

The key to this salad coming out looking right is that you chop all of the veggies to about the same size.  The recipe calls for the cucumber, tomato, radish and pepper to be about 2/3″ dice and the onion to be slightly smaller at 1/4″ dice.   I figure as long as it is small enough to fit on your fork and easily go into your mouth,  I’m happy.   Once that is all cut, mix all the veggies together along with the cilantro and parsley in a bowl.

In a jar or sealable container,  mix together 6 Tablespoons of the olive oil along with vinegar, lemon juice and garlic.   Season it with salt and pepper.

Mix the cardamom, allspice , cumin and about 1/2 tsp. of salt together in a small sealable container.   Add the rinsed garbanzo beans abd gently shake until coated.   Add 2 Tablespoons of olive oil to a skillet and let it warm up, not too hot, though.   Fry the coated garbanzo beans for about 2-3 minutes.   Shake the pan back and forth to make sure they aren’t sticking to the bottom.

When you are ready to serve the salad, pour the dressing over the vegetable/herb mixture. Toss to coat evenly.   Arrange the veggies in a semi circle on the plate then nestle the warm garbanzo beans in the curve of that crescent.

EVERYBODY came back for more

You can see that my salad didn’t have much of a curve.  I like more of the garbanzos than called for in the recipe.  I ended up making a second batch because my preferred ratio was half and half not 3/4  salad to 1/4 beans.