Pomegranate and Quinoa Salad – gluten free

This salad is ‘flexible’ in that you can change the contents around a little.  The quantities I have given will give you a big bowl that will serve at least four as a side – with some leftovers for lunch the next day.  When I say you can change the contents – so long as you keep the quinoa and pomegranate you can pretty much change the other vegetables as the contrast between the savoury and sweet is what is important.  This is a great salad for a pre-Christmas barbecue as the red and green vegetables will echo the colours of the season.

Salad:

2 cups of quinoa – cooked according to packet directions

One pomegranate

1 tin of chickpeas – drained

1 bunch of asparagus, lightly steamed until just soft, and cut into bite sized pieces

1 cup corn – lightly steamed until just soft (or use a tin of drained corn)

1/4 cup of chopped pistachios

4 spring onions, thinly sliced

Handful of chopped coriander leaves

Handful of chopped mint leaves

1/4 cup sesame seeds

1/4 cup sunflower seeds

Dressing:

1 tbs vinegar

1 tbs olive oil

2 tsp sumac

Juice of one small lemon

Salt and pepper to taste

Put all salad ingredients in a bowl (to get the pomegrante seeds out, I cut the fruit in half, and upturn the half over the bowl, give it a quick squeeze to get some juice, then bang it with a heavy spoon to get the loose ones out, then unfortunately you have to dig for the others – just don’t let the pith fall into the bowl as it is not nice to eat.

Combine the dressing ingredients, then stir through the bowl.