Add a little Greek yogurt and this is all you need for a simple, healthy and refreshing garbanzo bean and garlic salad
                                 Mark Guydish | Times Leader

Add a little Greek yogurt and this is all you need for a simple, healthy and refreshing garbanzo bean and garlic salad

Mark Guydish | Times Leader

Mint and Greek yogurt add refreshing feel to this salad

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<p>You can serve this simple dish as a a side just the way it is, or mix with some salad greens.</p>
                                 <p>Mark Guydish | Times Leader</p>

You can serve this simple dish as a a side just the way it is, or mix with some salad greens.

Mark Guydish | Times Leader

<p>Mark Guydish</p>
                                <p>Times Leader Test Kitchen</p>

Mark Guydish

Times Leader Test Kitchen

I suspect garbanzo beans, or chickpeas, are one of the more overlooked foods, unless you grew up in a family big on Middle Eastern cuisine (I did not). I don’t remember mom ever serving the tasty little morsels. Yet these legumes can bring a lot to the table, being rich in protien, vitamins, minerals and fiber.

For me, they practically beg you to add some garlic (MT whips up some no-recipe hummus every once in a while that shows how well the beans meld with king of herbs). So when I came across this in a vegetarian cookbook we’ve owned for years, it beckoned for a chance to be a test kitchen dish. As noted last week, I made it along with a bucatini and tomato bake for my vegeterian sister

It’s tasty as a side, but as the cook book suggests, you could make it a meal by serving with (or even on) a hearty salad, or just add some pita and make a light lunch.

I’m generally ambivelant about cilantro, so I went light on that. Diners can always add salt and pepper at the table, so I skipped them, though in hindsignt I think a little of each would have helped. And I didn’t find any coriander seeds in our collection of herbs and spices, so I used ground coriander, which worked fine.

The addition of mint and Greek yogurt gives it a refreshing feel, helping keep the garlic from getting overpowering (something other people tell me can happen, I’ve never experienced it myself). And while the recipe calls for serving it warm, I suspect it might work equally well cool, or at least at room temperature.

Dobru chut!

Fried Garlic and Garbanzo Bean (Chickpea) Salad (The Food Lover’s Guide to Vegetarian Cooking)

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

10 ounce can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed

2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint

2 tablespoons choppd fresh cilantro

juice of one lime

salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Greek yogurt

Heat the oil in a small frying pan and gently cook the garlic cloves and cumen for 5 minutes or so, untilgarlic is softened but not colored.

Place the garbanzo beans in a serving dish, stir in the garlic mixture, mint, cilantro and lime juice. Season to taste and serve while still warm with some Greeek yogurt.

Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish