Coetzee salad

So, you are vegan, right? Since we started this blog this is a question we are asked quite often. May be because we have published 19 vegan recipes so far. Vegans, vegetarians, flexitarians … for us this is not the way to see it. We make decisions about food three times a day. With our decisions about what we eat we are supporting one type of food producers or others, one model or another. We also vote with our fork about the things we want to change.

This is 2018 and it is pretty obvious that eating meat indiscriminately is a mistake. We meet more and more people aware of the degradation of the meat industry and who do not want to be part of a brutal system of food production. These people are us, the vegans, the vegetarians or just people who are consciously reducing the consumption of products of animal origin and learning how to cook and enjoy a plat-based diet.

Being critical with the food industry’s cruelty towards animals may seem something recent, another trend. Maybe because documentaries on the subject are multiplying? But it is not so new. In 1999 the South African writer J. M. Coetzee published The Lives of Animals. A fictional text where the novelist Elizabeth Costello gives a lecture at the University of Appleton. In her talk, she draws an analogy between modern industrial meat farms and the extermination camps during the Second World War. For her, so reprehensible is to kill other people for being considered inferior as raising, feeding and slaughtering animals to use them as meat. The controversy is served and the debates continue to this day.

We read the book last year and we were so impressed that we decided to pay tribute to J. M. Coetzee with a recipe with his name and a post in this blog. Coetzee is a vegetarian and advocates for the rights of animals through several international organizations. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003.

The Coetzee salad is a very direct, elegant and joyful Mediterranean salad. To a base of chickpeas we add textures and colors with the pomegranate and the avocado cubes. We finish it with a lemon vinaigrette and, if we want to make it more sophisticated, a handful of of fresh mint leaves (it does not need it). The result is a vibrant dish with bright colors, crunchy texture and fresh and kind flavors. Pomegranate, lemon, avocado. Again, the Mediterranean shores breezing on our plate.

5.0 from 2 reviews

Coetzee Salad

 

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Prep time

15 mins

Total time

15 mins

 

Author: TQC

Serves: 4

Ingredients

• 1 Lb. cooked chickpeas
• A clean and shelled pomegranate
• A medium-sized avocado cut into ½ inch cubes
• 1 lemon
• EVOO olive oil
• 1 spoonful of brown sugar, maple syrup or other sweetener of your choice.
• Pepper
• Salt

Instructions

1. For the base
2. In a large bowl combine the well-drained chickpeas with avocado dices and pomegranate grains.
3. For the vinaigrette
4. In a jar with a lid, mix 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, 5 of oil, a spoonful of sugar or syrup, half a teaspoon of grated lemon peel, half a teaspoon of salt and pepper to taste.
5. Close the lid and stir until the vinaigrette is silky.
6. Add to the salad and mix well.
7. Rectify with salt and pepper
8. Garnish with lemon slices.

Culinary Tips

Add avocado and pomegranate according to your taste. If the avocados are very small, add another one.
The avocado must be at its point of ripeness. Neither too green nor too ripe. Dices should not disintegrate when incorporated into the salad and mixed.
Optionally you may add some chopped fresh mint leaves, it will enhance the freshness of the salad.

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