GOAT Salad - Hellenic Republic’s Cypriot grain salad

• servings: 8 servings
• total time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

1 bunch coriander, chopped

1/2 bunch parsley, chopped

1/2 red onion, finely diced

1 cup freekah (or cracked wheat or quinoa)

1/2 cup Puy lentils

2 tbsp toasted pumpkin seeds

2 tbsp toasted slivered almonds

2 tbsp toasted pine nuts

2 tbsp baby capers

1/2 cup currants

Juice of 1 lemon

3 tbsp extra virgin olive

Sea salt to taste

1 pomegranate, deseeded, to serve

Directions

Blanch freekah and lentils separately in boiling water until both just cooked.

Drain well and allow to cool.

Mix the yoghurt, ground cumin and honey until combined.

In a medium bowl, place the coriander, parsley, red onion, freekah, lentils, toasted nuts, capers, currants, lemon juice and olive oil. Mix well and season to taste.

Place into serving dish and top with cumin yoghurt and pomegranate seeds.

Also try: More great vegetarian salad recipes ()

Notes

It serves eight comfortably, but if you suddenly find another two people on your doorstep, you can throw in a tin of chickpeas, and it’ll stretch even further without losing its nutty, grainy flavour.

Every time, it’s slightly different. Sometimes I add chopped dill, pistachios or dried barberries (commonly used in Middle Eastern cooking), or leave off the yoghurt dressing and crumble on feta instead. When I do make the dressing, I prefer it tangy rather than sweet, so I omit the honey, and stir in a tablespoon of finely chopped preserved lemon and the zest of half a lemon.

I love my food with oomph, so I added more onion than was prescribed (almost a whole one) to the salad. For the yoghurt dressing, I used Quinby’s chilli honey (made with Australian wild honey and habaneros) to give it some heat. I also stirred a heaped spoon of nutritional yeast to add a savoury, umami depth to the dressing, along with some garlic. You could go raw, or if you have toum (creamy Lebanese garlic sauce) in the fridge, it blends well in the yoghurt.