or Garbanzo Beans. Whatever it is you prefer to call them. Every single time I eat chickpeas I tell myself that we need to eat these beans more often. And then for some reason we don’t, and I can’t even give a good explanation for why that would be. They are one of my favorites- simply opening up a can of store-bought beans I can’t help myself and pop a few into my mouth immediately. Their creamy texture, nutty flavor and versatility have me smitten, and I need to remember to use them more.
Unless I’m in a pinch, I really prefer to cook my own chickpeas from their dried state. With a lot of dried beans, you don’t really notice a huge difference between canned and cooked from dried, but with chickpeas, the taste difference is enormous. The cost difference is also substantial! Chickpeas are among the more expensive legumes to buy canned, but when buying them dried and in a bag, they are the same price as the humble lentil a few steps over. If you are in need of a tutorial for cooking dried chickpeas, I happen to have a really good tutorial already in the archives. Though, it should be mentioned that should you want chickpeas for making homemade Falafel, you don’t want to use cooked beans anyways. In that case, they need a 24 hour soak in water before being used, but they don’t need to be cooked.
Anyway, chickpeas. When I began my vegan diet, my to-do list had two items on it. Make green soup, and cook some fresh chickpeas. Because I knew that if I was hard up for something to eat, I could literally sit with a bowl of plain old chickpeas and nibble on them like popcorn. Even better than that, is chickpeas that have been tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper and then roasted in a 375º oven until golden and nutty. This time what I did though, was hearken back to a recipe I’ve read a dozen times but never tried, Chickpeas In Their Own Broth from my edition of How To Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman.
Though, I didn’t actually go get out my cookbook and read the recipe again. What I did was even easier than the recipe required. (And if you’d like to see an actual recipe for it, check out my friend Kristi’s blog for the directions.) I got out my chickpeas that morning and gave them a short soak of about two hours before rinsing them and popping them into the pot to cook away. It took about 90 minutes before they were perfectly tender. I added a good teaspoon of sea salt, several grinds of fresh black pepper, and then turned off the heat and let the chickpeas simply soak in that warm broth for an hour or so.
Oh my gosh. The simple salt and pepper made it. I literally scooped out some of the chickpeas and that delicious broth and had myself a little snack of the easiest chickpea soup you could possibly make. Let me assure you that this wasn’t some bizarre protein-starved delusion that these chickpeas were so delicious. This was on day one of my diet, and I was already eating very well. I took the leftover chickpeas and broth, put them in a mason jar and then set them in the fridge where they were ready and waiting for me for a few days. They were wonderful, and yet another reminder that chickpeas need to be a staple in our diet- vegan or omnivore.
