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This Week's Recipe: Roasted Chickpeas
Dec. 26th, 2015 06:38 pmThis one doesn't meet my goal of cooking from my cookbooks, but I had a bag of dried chickpeas and healthier snack options are always good.
This week's recipe is Spicy Oven-Roasted Chickpeas.
Choices and substitutions: I doubled the recipe for the seasoning, and used about two-thirds of two lbs. dried chickpeas instead of 15 oz. canned. I soaked the entire two pounds overnight (adding two tablespoons baking soda and water to about twice the height of the chickpeas). I then rinsed and boiled them until just a little firm (about 40 minutes). I used as much as could reasonably fit on a large baking tray, and froze the excess. Cook time was 75 minutes instead of 30-40. I checked on it every 10 minutes and moved the chickpeas around (after 70 minutes it was on the verge of being done, and I switched to every 5).
Chickpeas are cheap, but dried chickpeas are significantly cheaper than canned. They have a reputation for being a bit harder to digest, though. I asked Melissa (my sister), for advice, since I knew she'd made similar recipes before. Pretty much everywhere suggests soaking overnight. Melissa suggested going a step further and sprouting the chickpeas (good advice, but I didn't want to add several days to my prep time, especially now). The fallback suggestion was to boil after soaking. Other sources are mixed on whether to boil after soaking or go straight to baking, and whether to soak plain or with baking soda.
How it turned out: Tasty! The spices were cooked a bit more than needed, but the texture was just right. Sources vary on whether chickpeas should be coated in oil and spices before roasting or just after, while sill warm. After this one attempt, I suspect that getting some oil on right away is very good. An optimum for flavor probably involves a light coat of salt and oil initially, followed by more oil and spices when there's ~30 minutes left to cook. But that sounds complicated, so I think seasoning before cooking is still a good idea.
This week's recipe is Spicy Oven-Roasted Chickpeas.
Choices and substitutions: I doubled the recipe for the seasoning, and used about two-thirds of two lbs. dried chickpeas instead of 15 oz. canned. I soaked the entire two pounds overnight (adding two tablespoons baking soda and water to about twice the height of the chickpeas). I then rinsed and boiled them until just a little firm (about 40 minutes). I used as much as could reasonably fit on a large baking tray, and froze the excess. Cook time was 75 minutes instead of 30-40. I checked on it every 10 minutes and moved the chickpeas around (after 70 minutes it was on the verge of being done, and I switched to every 5).
Chickpeas are cheap, but dried chickpeas are significantly cheaper than canned. They have a reputation for being a bit harder to digest, though. I asked Melissa (my sister), for advice, since I knew she'd made similar recipes before. Pretty much everywhere suggests soaking overnight. Melissa suggested going a step further and sprouting the chickpeas (good advice, but I didn't want to add several days to my prep time, especially now). The fallback suggestion was to boil after soaking. Other sources are mixed on whether to boil after soaking or go straight to baking, and whether to soak plain or with baking soda.
How it turned out: Tasty! The spices were cooked a bit more than needed, but the texture was just right. Sources vary on whether chickpeas should be coated in oil and spices before roasting or just after, while sill warm. After this one attempt, I suspect that getting some oil on right away is very good. An optimum for flavor probably involves a light coat of salt and oil initially, followed by more oil and spices when there's ~30 minutes left to cook. But that sounds complicated, so I think seasoning before cooking is still a good idea.
