Jerusalem-inspired Salad

I already had a pretty good vision of the salad before I even checked "Jerusalem" out from the library, so when there was a recipe which almost matched my vision ("Spiced chickpea and fresh vegetable salad"), and a serving suggestion for the lamb which matched the other part of my vision, it gave me confidence to proceed as I pleased. And I liked what I came up with. As with all salad recipes, I used amounts of vegetables/etc that looked right to my eye at the time.

Jerusalem-inspired Salad

Spiced chickpeas:
canned chickpeas-- thoroughly rinse and drain
1 t ground cardamom  (I used a big can of chickpeas so I think I tripled all spices to get enough)
1 1/2 t ground allspice
1 t ground cumin
1/4 t salt

Cucumbers
Tomato-- I used red tear-drop tomatoes and yellow cherry tomatoes, halved
Sweet red onion
Cilantro: bunch leaves and stems, coarsely chopped
Parsley: bunch, coarsely chopped

Dressing:
6 T olive oil
grated zest of 1 lemon
2 T lemon juice
1 1/2 T sherry vinegar
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 t sugar
a generous amount of ground sumac
salt, pepper

Serve with: 
avocado if desired

Cut tomato (or attractively half small tomatoes), cucumber, and onion into pieces to match the chickpeas. Mix with herbs.

Make dressing: whisk olive oil, lemon juice, zest, vinegar, garlic, sumac, and sugar, as well as salt and pepper to taste.

Mix cardamom, allspice, cumin, and salt. Toss chickpeas in the mixture to coat well. Heat some olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat and lightly fry the chickpeas 2-3 minutes. I did this in several batches, because I used a lot of chickpeas.

The recipe I used as inspiration has you keep the chickpeas warm and serve them on top of the dressed salad. I let them cool and dressed the salad and then folded in the cool chickpeas.