Moroccan Chickpea Salad with Cranberries and Pecorino

I’ve indulged a little over the last month or so and made quite a few, let’s say, not ideal dishes for your figure if you’re sitting down writing a blog every day. Yep, that’s right that delicious beef casserole, chicken tikka masala, and hummingbird cake means that little old Stevie is not so little anymore and a stint on a few things lower in calories is required. That’s OK though. Even healthy food can be scrummy. Look at this Moroccan chickpea salad with cranberries and pecorino as an example. Delicious, healthy and low calories. Yum!

This is a very easy salad to make and, I have to say, surprised me as to how good it tastes. I’m going to show you how to make it in a moment, but first, a few words about the chickpeas and how to prepare them.

1. Preparing the chickpeas

Cutting to the chase, you can use tinned, pre-cooked chickpeas for this recipe if you like. However, whenever I have time I like to cook all recipes from raw.

Furthermore, these Moroccan spiced chickpeas are great for just nibbling on and high fiber alternative to nuts. So I make loads. They’ll keep a good 3 days in the fridge.

To prepare raw chickpeas first place the chickpeas in a bowl and cover with twice as much water.

Soak the chickpeas for around 12 hours and they’ll absorb the waster and double in size.

The next thing to do is to strain them and then place in a large saucepan and cover again with water.

Now boil the chickpeas for 45 minutes until they are soft to eat.

Just leave them to strain while the Moroccan spice mixture is made.

2. Make the Moroccan spice mixture

The first thing to say is that 11 spices are used for the chickpeas but don’t be put off by this. The spice mix is very easy to make.

So what are the 11? There were the standards of good seas salt and black peppercorns. Then the four C seeds of cumin, coriander, cinnamon, and cardamom. Fennel seeds and star anise were added for some aniseed flavor, and then there were cloves, paprika, and good old allspice berries.

To prepare the spices simply add them to an electric food grinder or processor. If you haven’t got one of these just use a pestle and mortar, and some elbow grease.

Now just blitz the lot to s spicy powder.

3. Roast the chickpeas

To roast the chickpeas start by preheating the oven to 200C / 180C / 400F.

Next, add the boiled or tinned peas to a bowl and tip the spice powder over them.

Now, give them a good mix together.

Pour the spiced chickpeas onto a roasting tray and place in the oven.

Roast the spiced chickpeas for 30-45 minutes until they start to brown. Then just remove them from the oven and leave on the side while you prepare the salad.

4. Prepare the Moroccan chickpea salad with cranberries and pecorino

To prepare the Moroccan chickpea salad with cranberries and pecorino start by gathering all of the ingredients together. The chickpeas are already done so it’s just the baby spinach, radish, dried cranberries, and pecorino cheese.

Just a little bit of preparation needed here by slicing the radish and shaving the pecorino.

Now, lay the spinach out on your salad plates…

Add some chickpeas.

And then the cranberries.

Now the radish…

And, finally, the pecorino cheese shavings.

Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and season with salt and pepper if you like and enjoy this delicious and healthy Moroccan chickpea salad with cranberries and pecorino. Yum!

And that, my fine and healthy food friends is all there is to it. There is a little bit of faff if you go the raw chickpea route but tinned is fine if you are limited for time. Furthermore, make enough of the spice mix to keep in a jar. It’s a great recipe and can be used for many other recipes. Why not try Marrakesh Roast Lamb by clicking the link. Yum!

 

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As always, many thanks for reading and until next time… Steve.

 

Nutritional values

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