Black lentil tarka salad
An average of 4.5 out of 5 stars from 8 ratings
- Prepare
- less than 30 mins
- Cook
- less than 10 mins
- Serve
- Serves 2–4
15 minutes and a raid of your store cupboard is all you need to make this hearty lentil and chickpea salad, dressed in an aromatic spiced tarka.
By John Whaite
Ingredients
For the salad
For the tarka
- sunflower oil: 50ml/2fl oz sunflower oil
- chilli: 1 green chilli, finely chopped
- red onion: 1 small red onion, finely chopped
- garlic: 3 garlic cloves, minced
- ginger: 30g/1oz fresh root ginger, peeled and finely grated
- mustard seeds: 1 tsp black mustard seeds
- cumin: 2 tsp cumin seeds
- nigella seeds: 1 tsp nigella seeds
- curry leaves: 10 dried curry leaves
- 1 tsp fine sea salt
Method
To make the salad, toss all the ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Set aside.
To make the tarka, heat the oil in a medium saucepan over a high heat. Once hot, add all the ingredients except the salt. Fry, stirring, until the seeds just start to pop violently – this should take about 1 minute.
Pour the tarka straight into the bowl with the beans, season with the salt and stir together.