Chickpea and Lentil Salad

The other night, we had our friends over for My favorite chicken stew and Ugali.  I typically pair ugali and stew with a tropical fruit platter and a platter of tomatoes, cucumbers, and avocados.  The avocados in the store were rock hard, so I decided to pair the stew and ugali with Chickpea and Lentil Salad.  This recipe is from my "Tastes of Africa" cookbook.  I improvised with this recipe just a bit though:  I added 1/2 an English Cucumber and a whole, large tomato.  Also, the cooking time on the recipe for the lentils was not nearly long enough so I had to increase that by 100%.

Chickpea and Lentil Salad

2Tbs. olive oil
1Tbs. red wine vinegar
1 onion, chopped (green onion is a good substitute)
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1tsp. ground cumin
1 fresh green chili, finely chopped
1/2 cup lentils
1 can chickpeas, drained
1/4 cup chopped Italian parsley

Cook Lentils according to package and add about a 1/2 tsp salt. Drain off any extra water. Pour into a mixing bowl.  Add the canned chickpeas (garbanzo). Then add the remaining ingredients.  Add salt and pepper to taste and parsley to garnish.

I just love how simple and cost friendly most African recipes are.  It is exotic without using ingredients you will never use again.

Update:  I recently followed this recipe exactly, except I doubled it.  I had a lot left over so I decided to put it in the food processor and turn it into hummus.  I just added tahini, a little more olive oil and some lemon juice.  It was really delicious hummus!