Chickpeas Like You’ve Never Had ‘Em

Sort of.

Today’s recipe doesn’t actually utilize chickpeas in the form that most people know them in.  Instead, this really easy, and completely different quick bread is made from chickpea flour- also known as besan or gram flour.   As the October weather has just been unpleasantly cold, we’ve quickly succumbed to soup and stew season, however, we’ve been looking for a few new alternatives to the corn muffin/biscuit/bread that we eat with our soups and stews.  This particular Chickpea Pancake comes from How To Cook Everything Vegetarian, and was a definite winner for my hubby and myself.

What I especially love about it is how easy it was to throw together.  I mixed the batter together in the morning, to be ready for the evening meal later on.   My error was that the day I made this, I completely forgot that Abigail had dance, so we’d be dashing and dining that night.  Nevertheless, the pancake would wait until later at night, once the kids went to bed, Andy and I would have it with our bowl of sausage and sweet potato soup.

Once I was ready to make the pancake, I heated up the oven and stirred the rosemary and onion into my batter.  I didn’t grow rosemary this year, so instead I used 1 teaspoon of dried rosemary. The batter then was poured into my 12-inch cast iron skillet, and popped into the oven to bake up.

It took no time at all for a wonderfully dreamy scent to make it’s way out of the oven.  Rosemary, onion, olive oil and the chickpea flour just smelled so warm and delicious and inviting, that I couldn’t wait to dig into the first slice.  As soon as it was done, I dug in for a slice and was rewarded with something completely different.   I honestly cannot give a 100% accurate description- but it was something like a polenta meets custard meets pancake sort of deal. The texture was creamy yet sturdy and the flavor just made me want to eat the whole pan of it myself.

Truly delicious, and wickedly easy- the possibilities for add-ins with this are endless.  Bittman also suggests using the pancake as a basis for a pizza of sorts- oh wow, do I see adding some wilted spinach and feta cheese as a party on a plate!

If you want to skip the heating of the oven, he also suggests that the batter can be poured onto a griddle for individual flapjacks, and we may try that sometime, but for now- this quick bread cooked in a skillet is a big winner at our house and goes into instant dinner rotation.

Chickpea Pancake

from How To Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman

1 cup chickpea flour (besan)

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground black pepper, or more to taste

5 to 6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1/2 small yellow onion, thinly sliced

1 tablespoon fresh rosemary leaves (optional) (or 1 tsp dried)

Freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

Pour 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water into a mixing bowl and sift the chickpea flour into it.  Whisk the flour, water, salt, pepper and 2 tablespoons of the olive oil together. Cover the bowl with a towel, and let the batter sit on the kitchen counter for at least a few minutes, and up to 12 hours.

Preheat the oven to 450ºF.  Put 2 tablespoons olive oil in a well-seasoned or nonstick 12-inch pizza pan or skillet.  Stir the sliced onion and rosemary leaves into the batter- it will be a little thicker than it was originally- then pour the batter into the greased pan.  Bake for about 15 minutes, or until the pancake is firm and the edges are set.  Preheat the broiler and brush the top with another tablespoon or so of the oil.

Set the pancake a few inches away from the broiler for a minute or two, just long enough to brown it spottily, but not long enough to evenly color it or burn it.  Cut into wedges and serve hot or at least warm with extra black pepper.