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Chickpea and Cucumber Salad (Chana Chaat)
Chaat is a style of savory South Asian street snack, of which there are dozens of varieties. They all combine a mix of contrasting flavors and textures—sweet, tart and spicy, as well as creamy and crunchy. This is our version of chickpea (chana) chaat; it’s a good appetizer or side to grilled meats or seafood. To mimic the crunch of fried samosa wrappers that are sometimes used in chaat, we used the fried wonton strips sold near the croutons in the supermarket. For convenience, we used store-bought tamarind chutney (look in the international aisle) and spiked it with brown sugar, lime juice and hot sauce. We preferred the acidic heat of Tabasco or Frank's Red Hot sauce. Feel free to substitute chopped tomato and/or mango for all or some of the cucumber. And if you like, drizzle with whole-milk plain yogurt.
6
Servings
Don’t use the curry powder without toasting it in a dry a skillet over medium for 1 minute, stirring constantly. This deepens its flavors and cooks out any raw notes.
15 minutes
Ingredients
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2
15½-ounce cans chickpeas, drained, rinsed and patted dry
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1
small red onion, finely chopped
Directions
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01In a large bowl, toss the chickpeas, onion, curry powder, 2 teaspoons salt and 1 teaspoon pepper. Set aside.
Pardon the interruption
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This recipe was a huge hit at a dinner party. It was paired with salmon and appreciated as something different. I didn't have tamarind so I just added a bit more lime juice as well as lemon juice. I also paired it with an off-the-cuff yogurt sauce (plain yogurt, lemon juice, cucumber, salt pepper and olive oil) that really seemed to bring it together nicely.