Chickpeas are also known as garbanzo beans or gram. In appearance, they look like wrinkled and peeled hazelnuts.
Cooking with chickpeas
Chickpeas are a staple in Middle Eastern and Indian cuisines. They are very useful for vegetarian and vegan cooking, as a great source of protein, texture and filling.
Chickpeas require a long cooking time. You can get around this by purchasing canned or tinned chickpeas or cooking a large batch and freezing the chickpeas.
In Indian cooking, chickpeas (known as gram) are often ground into flour known as besan flour. This can be made into patties, fritters, flatbreads, snack balls, cookies, and more. It is an excellent binder that can be used in place of eggs for some dishes, making it useful for vegans and others unable to consume eggs.
- Spicy Garbonzo Beans - Make Berbere Sauce out of: large amounts of ancho chili pepper powder, New Mexico chili pepper powder and dried onion flake (powdered), with small amounts of garlic powder, hot red pepper flake, allspice, dried ginger, clove, nutmeg, cardamon, black pepper, salt, and turmeric. Wet the powdered spices down with an equal part of olive oil and red wine. Use a few tablespoons of the spice mixture in a dish of beans or lentils, or in a saute of chicken.
- Humus - Mash some beans, add too much garlic, a couple of lemons worth of juice, a like amount of tahini and enough olive oil to make it work. Eat with pita bread on your fingers, or just eat with your fingers.
