This recipe is based on a very popular item
on Lulu’s food truck menu. Lauren Loomis, the owner of Lulus’ food truck in St. Louis
gave a cooking class at “Harvest Market" in Kirkwood, that included this salad. Lauren
calls it “Better than Tuna Salad”. She uses canned cooked Garbanzo Beans and a
product called “Vegannaise”. My version is raw.
Ingredients:
Garbanzo Beans sprouted (2 cups)
Red Onion (1/4 medium diced medium)
Celery Stalk (1 chopped medium)
Pickle (1 large or more diced) one you
fermented from local cucumbers
Herbs, fresh (1/8 cup, Thyme, Dill,
Rosemary, Oregano, Sage, Tarragon etc. chopped finely)
Mustard (2 teaspoons of whole grain
Mustard or more or 1/8 cup chopped Mustard Sprouts)
Olive Oil (1/6-1/4 cup to taste)
Salt and Pepper to taste
Soak Garbanzo beans in bowl with water
for 8 to 12 hours. Be sure you have 5 times the water to bean ratio. Garbanzos
swell up real big. Then sprout for 36 to 48 hours rinsing twice a day. The
garbanzos will get nice white, half inch tails. You can use pickles from the
store but most are not raw. “Bubbie” pickles are raw but hard to find. I make
my own raw pickles. I buy pickling cucumbers at the farmers market and pickle
them myself. I use many different pickling agents such as store bought pickling
spices and/or mustard seeds and/or raw apple cider vinegar and/or salt with hot
peppers. Experiment to get the pickles you like. I leave cucumbers and spices
out in room temp with lid off for around 72 hours then refrigerate.
Process the sprouted Garbanzo Beans in a
food processor for around 15 seconds. You want this dish nice and chunky. See
photo below to get an idea. Blend it too long and you end up with hummus.
Texture is important in this dish for getting the interesting flavors. Add all
the other ingredients and stir by hand. This dish can be put over greens and
sprouts from your garden. I like to put it on raw crackers or just eat with a
spoon. It keeps fine covered in the fridge for at least 3 days. This makes enough
to top 6 salads.
The keys to this dish are the pickles,
herbs and the mustard. Experiment with the herbs and their quantity. I will use
whatever herb in my garden needs thinning. I find all herbs work well in this
dish. Double or triple the amount of herb if you want it to be the main flavor
of this dish. I suspect that Mustard Powder is not processed raw. I chopped the
pickles into very large pieces but you may prefer smaller pieces. Not sure if
this really tastes like tuna but I cannot stop making and eating it. Salud.