Chickpeas (also known as Garbanzo Beans or Ceci *) are an excellent source of inexpensive protein. Drizzling olive oil and lemon over them at the start is always
the right thing to do. From there you can take it wherever you want with additional ingredients: tuna, olives, capers, feta cheese, bacon, ooh maybe all of them.
But for this recipe we’re going to keep it rustic. We’ll drop in some nice ripe cherry tomatoes and some fresh parsley – that’s it. But hey, you must use fresh parsley for this, not dried. The Italian flat leaf parsley is best. Stay away from that creepy weird curly stuff.
The addition of a little cayenne pepper on this at finish adds a nice touch of heat. Ground black pepper is fine too.
This recipe comes together quick and is especially good for the warmer weather.
Need This
4 – 15 ounce cans of chick peas (store brand is fine)
1 pint of red ripe cherry tomatoes – rough-chopped
1 lemon
1 large clove of garlic – cut in half
Olive oil
Salt
Ground Cayenne pepper (or ground black)
A handful of Italian flat leaf parsley – chopped
Do This
Open the 4 cans of chickpeas and dump the contents into a colander in the sink. Rinse the chickpeas under clean cold water until all the foam is gone off of them.
Get out a large glass bowl. Take one half of the cut garlic clove and rub it (cut side down) all over the inside of the bowl.
Put the rinsed chickpeas into the glass bowl. Drizzle a couple-a-three glugs of olive oil over them, then add the chopped up tomatoes. Mix well.
Cut the lemon in half. Grate the zest of 1/2 of the lemon over the chickpeas and tomatoes, then squeeze in the lemon juice from the grated half. Add salt to taste, whichever pepper you’re using, and the chopped fresh parsley. Mix again.
Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.
When ready to serve, taste. Add more salt, pepper, oil, lemon or parsley as you please. Mix well one more time and serve in shallow bowls.
A good hunk of thick-sliced rustic bread on the side is not a bad idea.
Serves 4. My cost approx. $ 5.77 total – about $ 1.44 per serving.
*Pronounced Chech-ee, though to be honest I’ve never heard anyone call them that. GMN