Mango-Chickpeas Salad

I like chickpeas, so the other day I cooked some chickpeas for evening tea and wanted to do something other than the usual Chickpeas sundal. As I was gazing through my refrigerator looking for inspiration to add to my chickpeas, a bag of frozen mangoes caught my eyes. The poor thing has been sitting in the freezer since last summer and I decided to give it a try with my chickpeas. The result was great. Hope you like this simple, healthy and refreshing salad. 

Ingredients:

• Mango - 1 cup, diced. (Fresh or frozen. Thaw frozen mango before using)
• Chickpeas - 1 1/2 cups cooked (Add a little salt while cooking the chickpeas)
• Onion - 1/2, diced
• Red pepper (capsicum) - 1/2 diced
• lemon juice - from 1/2
• Salt -1/2 tsp or to taste. 
• Dry red chili flakes - to taste

Steps:

• Combine all the ingredients together.
• Add salt carefully as the cooked chickpeas has salt already added. 
• Refrigerate for a while before serving.
• You can always add more or less of each ingredient to your liking.

Mango Salad

I love mangoes, I think most Indians do, after all India does have the best mangoes :) Here in Canada we get mangoes from California and Mexico, don't get me wrong, they are good, but they cannot compete with Indian mangoes when it comes to taste. If you have not tasted Indian mangoes you've missed something great, even the skin of Indian mangoes taste great.

I found some green Mexican mangoes the other day at the supermarket, they taste like half ripe Kili mooku (parrot- beak) mango, but have bitter skin. I remembered eating a salad made of mangoes long time ago and decided to make it. The mango salad is very refreshing and light. 

Ingredients:

• Mango - 1, thinly sliced. (Any variety of mango, that is firm and not too sweet will work) 
• Carrot - 1, medium size, thinly sliced
• Red Onion - 1/2, thinly sliced
• Red pepper (Capsicum) -1/2, thinly sliced. You can use green pepper if you cant find red.
• Coriander Leaves -  Handful, finely chopped.

Dressing:

• Lemon juice from half a lemon
• Ginger - 1/4 inch, finely grated
• Hot sauce/Chilli sauce - 1/2 tsp or more
• Salt - 1/4 Tsp
• Sugar - 3/4 tsp

Steps:

• Mix all the sliced veggies and mangoes together.
• Mix together the ingredients of the dressing.
• Combine the dressing and the salad well using your fingers. 
• Refrigerate for a while, it will bring out the flavours really well. Then serve.