Recipe: chickpea salad with albacore tuna

With 2016 named the "Year of the Pulses" by the United Nations, Vancouver's Four Seasons' chef Ned Bell shared his quick and easy recipe for a chickpea salad. 

"Basically this is a composed salad and would be tasty with any protein you choose or have in your fridge at home," Bell told CBC's Andrew Chang. 

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Ingredients:

• 1 head butter lettuce, little gem or baby romaine hearts
• 1 pint heirloom style cherry tomatoes
• 20 nicoise olives
• 1 red pepper; roasted and seeded, cut into strips
• ½ cup canned chick peas; drained and rinsed, tossed in a splash of olive oil and red wine vinegar

Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

• 2 cups canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 1 whole roasted red pepper, peeled and seeded
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• ¼ tsp sea salt
• ¼ tsp cracked black pepper

Puree all the ingredients in a food processor, remove and set aside.

Lemon Lime Vinaigrette

• 1 lemon, zest and juice
• 1 lime zest and juice
• 2 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 1 cup canola oil
• ¼ tsp sea salt
• ¼ tsp cracked black pepper

Blend all the ingredients together in a Vita Prep blender.

For the protein:

I chose to use Albacore tuna, but you could use and substitute with cooked wild salmon, B.C. spot prawns, grilled chicken, crumbled goat cheese, marinated tofu or toasted nuts. 

To assemble the salad

Compose all the ingredients on the plate or platter. Garnish with the red pepper hummus and pour some of the vinaigrette on top.