Potato & Chickpea Salad with Smoked Salmon & Avocado


If you can only see my computer, there's an increasing amount of photo albums of food that I have been meaning to share.  My problem is, I am not a planner.  I have never been one and I will never straighten up with one wave of the wand.  I jump from one half-prepared post to another like a busy bee with no real aim.  I have been flying over this post the past few days, abandoned it, worked on another one, then came back to this one again.  See what I mean?  Even I get confused with my round-the-blog movements. 


I've been preparing a post connected to my weekend "sojourn" in Eataly.  If you saw my Instagram pictures this past weekend, you would wonder if I really camped out there.  While our kids spent their weekend with their Nonna (grandmother), my husband and I spent our entire weekend there, going home only to put away our purchases and to eat dinner that we bought from there too.  Saturday and Sunday were exact replicas of each other.  It was too much, wasn't it? 


A friend asked me not long ago what new things I have been putting in my blog.  SALADS.  If the heat won't let up, then I still won't cook anything that requires me to stay in front of the stove stirring.  So here's another salad that you can compose easily.  The only cooking involved is the boiling of the potatoes that you can leave as soon as you set the pot on the stove.  It's a composition of common ingredients so you might have also prepared it already in one way or another.  For the meantime, let me leave you with this post while I go checking on the others that I am planning to share with you. 

Buon appetito!



Potato & Chickpea Salad with Smoked Salmon & Avocado

Ingredients:
Serves 2
  • 3 big potatoes
  • 250 grams pre-cooked chickpeas 
  • 1 tablespoon capers
  • 1/2 lemon
  • extra virgin olive oil 
  • white wine vinegar 
  • salt
  • pepper
  • 1 red onion, rings (I used Tropea red onion, a very mild one.)
  • parsley, chopped finely
  • baby lettuce
  • 100 grams smoked salmon 
  • 1 avocado, quartered
  • chives, chopped finely
  • balsamic vinegar
Directions:
  1. Boil the potatoes.  When they are cooked, peel and slice.  Transfer to a bowl.  Add the chickpeas and capers.
  2. In a small bowl, whisk the lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil, white wine vinegar, salt & pepper.  The amount depends on how you want the dressing to taste like. 
  3. Pour the dressing to the potatoes.  Mix.  Sprinkle with parsley & onions.  
  4. Compose the serving plate.
  5. Put a portion of potato & chickpea salad on the plate. 
  6. Next to it, put some baby lettuce topped with smoked salmon.  Sprinkle with chopped chives.   Drizzle with lemon (I usually squeeze lemon juice on the salmon because I find them too salty at times.  This is optional.) and balsamic vinegar.
  7. Put half of the avocado on the plate.  Drizzle with balsamic vinegar.
  8. Serve cold.