This salad's freshness and vibrancy give a lift to winter meals. It's so versatile I serve it all year.
I love the balance between the sour-sweet pomegranate molasses (pomegranate juice reduced to a syrup), the peppery warmth of mint and the slight smokiness of chickpeas and toasted sesame seeds.
Perfect with most meat, chicken and fish dishes, it also can be served as a light meal with a cheese and bread platter. Red or black grapes look beautiful in this salad, but green will do.
Choose seedless grapes, or seeded ones can be halved and the seeds flicked out. Sometimes I toss in a handful of salad greens; rocket is especially good.
2 cups canned or cooked chickpeas, dried
200g grapes, halved if large
1/3 telegraph cucumber, peeled, deseeded and sliced
1/4 cup finely chopped mint
1/4 cup finely chopped spring onions or chives
60g sesame seeds, toasted
50g natural brown almonds, toasted, roughly chopped
mint sprigs to garnish
Dressing
2 Tbsp pomegranate molasses
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
tsp salt
Combine the chickpeas, grapes, cucumber, mint and spring onions or chives in a bowl.
Toast the sesame seeds in a dry frypan over low heat for 4-5 minutes, stirring frequently, as they scorch very easily. Transfer to a plate and allow to cool. Toast the almonds separately in the same frypan for 5-6 minutes until quite a deep brown. Cool.
Just prior to serving, add sesame seeds and almonds to the bowl containing the salad ingredients.
In a small screw-top jar, shake together the dressing ingredients and pour over the salad.
Toss gently and tip on to a serving platter or bowl.
Garnish with sprigs of mint.
Serves four as an accompaniment.
