garbanzo bean salad with eggs, quinoa, young spinach leaves and grated beet, and some necessary changes to recipes using cassava flour

Hello neighbors! Do you eat beets at all? We do, and up until recently we had them either cooked and diced (the traditional French way, but definitely not my husband’s favorite) or raw and julienned. Being known to stray away from tradition, I decided to try serving them cooked and grated, combined with other ingredients. It turns out this was a good idea, hence the recipe on this blog. This salad was put together using what I had in my pantry: quinoa, chick peas, hard boiled eggs, parsley and young spinach. Feel free to use as much or as little as you want to make this very simple and wholesome vegetarian meal.

Ingredients (serves 3 to 4 people)

– 70g quinoa

– 3 or 4 eggs

– 130g canned chick peas, or as much as you like* and **

– 150g cooked beet  – I prefer vacuum-packed cooked beets, but I have also used canned beets on occasion, as long as the only ingredients listed were beets, water and salt – there should be no need for extra sugar if the beets are good quality to start with!

– a little parsley

– some young spinach leaves (optional)

*130g chick peas (garbanzo beans) is about half of a regular size can. Please note that you can freeze whatever is leftover, as well as the juices (separately). Chick pea juice can be used as a substitute for egg whites in a vegan chocolate mousse, to add a pleasant chewiness to a gluten-free pizza dough, or to make a meringue in a dessert. The leftover chick peas can be used to make some hummus: just finely blend them with ½ TBSP tahini + 40g avocado, 1 TBSP freshly squeezed lemon juice and ½ TBSP canola oil.

**In the U.S, after trying several brands, I have settled on Nature’s Promise garbanzo beans for three reasons: they contain very little salt, have no added anything, and are cooked to perfection, a must for my personal sensitive digestive system.

How to:

(NOTE : Steps 1 and 2 must be done ahead so the quinoa and eggs will have time to cool down before you assemble the salad)

1. Cook 70g washed and rinsed quinoa in 210ml water, covered, over low heat. Turn off the heat when the little seeds inside pop out, and let stand, still covered, until cooled. Good to know: quinoa, just like rice, keeps well in the freezer for up to two months. Do not hesitate to cook a larger batch!  It is important to wash and rinse it before cooking if you don’t want it to taste bitter.

2. Hard boil the eggs, about 9 minutes from boiling point. Store in the refrigerator unpeeled after cooling until serving time.

3. Combine cooked quinoa, hard boiled eggs (now peeled and cut up), 130g garbanzo beans, parsley and young spinach leaves.

Serve with dressing of your choice, such as oil and vinegar. Sulfite-intolerant folks can safely use all-natural rice vinegar. Just to be on the safe side, I don’t buy it if it contains sugar: white sugar is often manufactured using sulfites, particularly beet sugar.
Enjoy!

I really owe my American neighbors an apology… I am currently staying in the U.S. and finding out that some of my favorite recipes (homemade gluten-free wraps and savory pie dough) are not turning out as they do when I make them in France, due to a difference in ingredients. Cassava flour, for one, behaves differently depending on the brand, and so does olive oil: virgin is definitely better than refined! I have had to make some adjustments, and detailed them on the two above-mentioned recipes.  Thank you all for your patience…

Advertisement