Artichoke and chickpea salad

Name: Artichoke and chickpea salad
Total time: 20 min
Yield: 2 servings
Ingredients: Artichoke hearts (jarred or frozen) 1 cup (200 g); Chickpeas, cooked 1 cup (160 g); Cherry tomatoes 10 (150 g); Olive oil 2 tbsp; Lemon juice 1.5 tbsp; Red onion 1/4 (50 g); Parsley a handful; Pepper a little

If you use jarred artichokes, rinse them. The brine is the biggest variable in this salad.

2 servings20 min

Ingredients

Artichoke hearts (jarred or frozen)1 cup (200 g)
Chickpeas, cooked1 cup (160 g)
Cherry tomatoes10 (150 g)
Olive oil2 tbsp
Lemon juice1.5 tbsp
Red onion1/4 (50 g)
Parsleya handful
Peppera little

Method

Tip jarred artichokes into a sieve and rinse for 30 seconds. Used straight from the jar, they make the salad salty.
Shake them dry and press with kitchen paper. Wet hearts shed the dressing.
Cut any large pieces into bite-sized ones.
Rinse and drain tinned chickpeas too.
Slice the red onion thin and soak 5 minutes in cold water, then drain. It takes the bite off.
Halve the cherry tomatoes.
Whisk the olive oil, lemon juice and pepper into a dressing. Start with no salt.
Toss everything together and top with roughly chopped parsley.
Add salt only after tasting. Usually none is needed.
Leave it 10 minutes so the chickpeas take up the dressing.

Cooking note

Rinsing is the point of this recipe. Raw artichoke holds 94 mg of sodium per 100 g; jarred hearts run far higher because of the brine — more than three times as much in some products. Even 30 seconds under the tap removes a good share of the surface brine. The same goes for tinned chickpeas.

That is why you start without salt. Both ingredients bring their own. Taste after tossing and you will usually find none is needed.

Add up the fibre and the character of this salad shows. About 10.8 g in 200 g of artichoke, about 12 g in 160 g of cooked chickpeas — over 20 g together, most of a day's 25–30 g. If your usual fibre is low, start with half. Both are fermentable, and gas follows.

Artichoke's inulin and chickpeas' oligosaccharides are both high-FODMAP. With IBS, this combination is one to avoid.

The lemon juice is not only for flavour. Chickpea iron is non-haem and poorly absorbed, and vitamin C in the same place raises the uptake. The cherry tomatoes do the same job.

This dish has nothing to do with artichoke's lipid evidence. Those trials used leaf extract, not the vegetable.

Ingredients used here

Vegetables

Moderate evidence

Artichoke

A meta-analysis of nine randomised trials in 702 people found artichoke extract lowered total cholesterol by 17.6 mg/dL. HDL did not move, and what was tested was a leaf extract, not a boiled artichoke.