When I used to work in NYC, my favorite lunch place was Chop’t, granted the $10 salad wraps were a bit pricey for lunch, but they had such great salad blends. Way better than the typical chicken caesar and veggie concepts. My favorite was the Palm Beach wrap – a mix of chopped romaine, heart of palm, avocado, cherry tomatos, cucumber and grilled shrimp. I always added in chickpeas (yet another chickpea recipe, gasp!) and had them toss it with a lemon lime vinegaratte. That wrap was without a doubt one of my top 10 favorite things to eat and sadly I haven’t had one since I relocated across the river (ugh!).

The glimmer of light came this week when Fresh Direct offered shelled wild rock shrimp on sale; I had a lightbulb moment when I realized I could try and make this wrap myself. Doh! It’s not tough to make but does require quite a bit of chopping so get your knife and cutting board ready! We chose to wrap them in burrito sized flour tortillas that had been heated in the oven but if you have access to real wrap options, this would be great with an herbed or whole wheat wrap. Just make sure it is large and fairly thick. So here we go.

Ingredients:

1 large head of romaine lettuce, chopped

1/2 cucumber, thinly sliced and chopped

1 cup cherry tomatos, chopped

1 avocado

1-2 cups shrimp, grilled, broiled or otherwise cooked thru**, chopped

2 stalks heart of palm, chopped (I used canned)

1 cup chickpeas, chopped

2 lemons

1 lime

2 tbsp high quality olive oil

1/2 tsp sea salt

**I just washed my shrimp, dropped them on a cookie sheet, tossed with olive oil, garlic salt and ground coriander and stuck them under the broiler for 6-7 minutes. Ta-dah!

To make your dressing, take out a large salad or mixing bowl, squeeze your lemons and lime in (remove any seeds that fall in), sprinkle your sea salt in and add the olive oil. Whisk briskly until the liquids combine (emulsify) and taste. If it’s too tart, add more olive oil and conversely, if it doesn’t have a strong enough citrus bite, add more juice. Be conservative with the salt, remember, it’s way easier to add more than to compensate for too salty dressing! Now on to the filling, essentially you’re just going to assemble the chopped ingredients (chickpeas, tomato, cucumber, shrimp, heart of palm and lettuce) and mix together in your big bowl of dressing. Then you’ll take your avocado and just spoon it into the mix and stir again. If you want you can chop that up as well, but when it’s smushed it combines more evenly. Now take your wrap of choice and heat it enough that it’s pliable and slightly warm; plop a big spoonful of salad mix into the middle and wrap. This takes talent and ours certainly weren’t rolled by experts, so it was one of those, don’t put it down until you’re done eating! But YUM, so amazingly good (I think Mike agrees), please try it!!