Video:Vegetarian Bean Salad

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Transcript:Vegetarian Bean Salad

Hi! My name is Lea Elleseff and you're watching About.com Food. Today we're going to make a really special bean salad that is said to come from central Asia, though some changes have been made to it ever since its American days.

Vegetarian Bean Salad Ingredients

Here's what we'll need:

• 2 cans kidney beans
• bushel of cilantro
• onion
• 5 cloves garlic
• 1/2 c. walnuts
• olive oil
• secret ingredient

Mix the Beans and Cilantro

Our first step is simply to pour the kidney beans into a sizable bowl. Next, cut off the roots and stems of the cilantro, and continue chopping only the leafy parts until they look like this. Now add them to the beans and mix.

Chop the Walnuts and Vegetables

For our next step, we want to chop up walnuts. For this step we want to put our palm on the dull edge of the knife and push down. Once you have them in medium to small size pieces, mix them in with the beans and cilantro. Now, we want to cut the onion into long slivers like these. And for our last chopping act, we want to chop our garlic into medium sized chunks.

Saute the Onions and Garlic

And now it's time to turn to our stove and turn things up a bit. I'm going to turn the stove to a medium flame. Sprinkle on a good amount of olive oil and let the pan get sizzling hot. Throw in the onions. While waiting for the onions to get golden we want to stir them around a bit to prevent them from sticking or burning.

As soon as the onions get golden we know it's time to add the garlic and cook for 2 more minutes. Now we want to make sure not to overcook the garlic, because it will lose the bite this salad needs.

Mix the Bean Salad Ingredients

Our saute is ready to join the rest of the salad now. So let's add it in and stir it up.

Bean Salad Secret Ingredient

Even though this salad looks delicious, we're still missing our secret ingredient: ketchup. That's right, we're going to mix ketchup right into the salad, keeping in mind that a little bit goes a long way.

And now you're all set to enjoy your newest recipe. Thank you for joining me, to learn more visit us on the Web at food.about.com.