Recipe: Prawn, chickpea and avocado salad

Here's the recipe for the dish I mentioned in an earlier post . I ended up cooking the chickpeas exactly as per Richard Corrigan's Langoustines with Chickpeas and Cumin as it appears in his book The Clatter of Forks and Spoons . That recipe isn't online and I don't have permission to post it here so you'll just have to buy the book, but its a simple thing to do and involves cooking dried chickpeas with onion, garlic and cumin seeds.

The ingredients are quite healthy - low fat prawns, cholesterol-lowering high fibre chickpeas and potassium-rich avocados that can help regulate blood pressure.

serves 2 as a generous main course or 4 as a light lunch

for the salad

170g cooked and peeled prawns
250g chickpeas (dried weight) soaked overnight and boiled until tender
2 avocados, peeled and diced
4 tomatoes, chopped
half a cucumber, deseeded and diced
1 red chilli, deseeded and finely diced
1 red onion, diced
juice of one lime
bunch of coriander, finely chopped

to serve

cos lettuce leaves, torn
red wine vinegar
extra virgin olive oil
wholemeal pittas

Combine all the salad ingredients in a bowl and toss to combine. Season with a little salt. Arrange the lettuce leaves on a plate and dress with the vinegar and oil. Pile on the prawn salad and serve with the pittas.