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The Veggie Girl: Chickpea chitchat
Years ago, when I was a young, ambitious woman working in the San Francisco financial district, I had my first taste of hummus.
It was the specialty of an Armenian deli across the street from the black monolith in which I worked. They packed it fresh in to-go tubs side-by-side with hummus’ frequent companion, tabouleh, a salad made from, among other things, bulgur wheat and copious amounts of parsley.
I’m not sure why I ordered hummus the first time, but one bite into it, I was hooked. I still am. It remains a favorite lunch or dinner staple in my home.
It was years before I made my own batch of hummus. I tweaked a recipe a bit and found I could make hummus that wasn’t too far from that first delicious mouthful from the deli.
If you’ve never had hummus, it’s a hearty spread made from today’s subject, chickpeas. Often served with pita bread, it hails from the Middle East. The earliest known recipe, “hummus kasa,” is from medieval Egypt.
Hummus, by the way, is the Arabic word for chickpea.
I recently had another new chickpea experience: eating them raw out of the pod. They’re delicious that way, and I highly recommend trying them if you happen upon them in that state.
Not surprisingly, their flavor is reminiscent of peas eaten fresh from the pod.
Chickpeas, also known as garbanzo beans or ceci beans, are legumes. One of the earliest cultivated vegetables, remains dating back 7,500 years have been found in the Middle East.
By the Bronze Age, they were known in Italy and Greece.
In classical Greece, they were a staple in cuisine, including being used in desserts and eaten raw in their green state.
The ancient Romans worked with several varieties, cooking them into a broth or roasting them as a snack.
The Apicius, a collection of Roman cookery recipes dating back to the late fourth or early fifth century, has a number of entries featuring chickpeas.
Albertus Magnus, a 13th century German friar, bishop, philosopher and theologian, mentions using red, white and black varieties. (Obviously, he was a cook, as well.)
Charlemagne (who, as far as I know wasn’t a cook, merely an emperor) felt chickpeas were important enough to list as growing in each imperial province in his eighth century domain.
There are two main kinds of chickpea: desi, with smaller, darker seeds and a rough coat, and kabuli, with larger, lighter-colored seeds and a smooth coat.
Kabuli-type chickpeas are about twice as large as the desi type, and are the ones most typically found in the U.S. on supermarket shelves.
The desi type, which are sometimes irregularly shaped and range in color from light tan to almost back, are far more popular in other areas of the world, representing 80 to 90 percent of the garbanzo beans consumed worldwide.
Of the two, desi-type chickpeas have higher fiber content and therefore a very low glycemic index, making them good for those with blood sugar problems.
In addition, desi-type chickpeas are likely the earliest form of chickpea, since they closely resemble seeds found on archaeological sites, as well as the seeds of the wild plant ancestor of chickpeas, which grows only in Turkey.
Many of us know chickpeas only as a topping, along with kidney beans and beets, on a salad bar line, but they have a rich and varied place in cuisines throughout the world.
There’s the Middle East, of course, since that’s from where they hail.
Besides hummus, they’re ground and made into falafel, deep-fried balls most often served with a yogurt-based sauce in pita bread or wraps.
They’re also roasted with spices there (some with a candy coating) for snacking.
There are copious ways they’re used in Indian cuisines, and in vegetarian regions there they serve as one of the major sources of protein.
Cooked chickpeas show up in stews, salads and curries in India, and chickpea flour, also known as gram flour, is a staple food and the basis for many popular dishes there.
Unripe chickpeas are picked out of their pods for snacks in India (as well as in the Levant area of the Middle East), and the plant’s green leaves are used in salads.
Gram flour is popular elsewhere in the world, including in Burma, where it’s used to make “Burmese tofu;” in Sicily, where it coats meats or vegetables which are deep fried into chickpea fritters; throughout the Mediterranean region, where it’s made into flatbread; and in many other areas of the world, including northern Italy, southern France, Gibraltar, Argentina, Uruguay, Algeria and India, where it’s made into thin pancakes.
And in the Philippines, whole chickpeas are preserved in syrup and eaten as sweets.
Like all legumes, chickpeas are rich in fiber and protein. For this reason, they’re beneficial in regulating blood sugar.
There’s a added boon for those who wish to lose weight. Studies show that satiety after meals is increased by the addition of garbanzo beans to dishes.
At 12.5 grams of fiber per cup (that’s 50 percent of our recommended daily intake), chickpeas support digestive tract function. In fact, the type of fiber particular to garbanzo beans – with two-thirds of it insoluble – is especially healthful for the colon.
Chickpeas are a remarkable food in terms of their antioxidant composition. Not only are they full of antioxidant nutrients such as vitamin C, vitamin E and beta-carotene, they contain concentrated supplies of phytonutrients, plant material necessary for good health.
An increasing number of studies show that garbanzo beans reduce the risk of heart disease, in part because of their antioxidant makeup.
If you’d like to get more of these delightful, buttery tasting, nutty beans into your diet, try tossing them on a salad (in my opinion, they’re particularly good with Greek salads) or into the next soup or stew you make.
You can also throw together a batch of hummus, which makes a fantastic lunch to go when paired with pita bread or raw veggies like celery, pepper, jicama or carrots.
My recipe is below, in case you’d like to try your hand at this. If not, most markets now carry premade hummus, unlike my years in San Francisco.
And just for good measure, I’ve included a fabulous-sounding recipe for roasted garbanzo beans. Be warned: they may be addicting!
As a final note, be sure you plan to soak dried chickpeas for at least four hours before cooking them. Even with soaking, they’ll take one to two hours to become tender. Check to be sure they don’t get overcooked, as they’ll fall apart easily, if so.
And before I go, did you know ground-roast chickpeas are sometimes used as a coffee substitute in Europe?
This practice was first written about by a German author in 1793.
They were grown in some areas of Germany for this purpose during the First World War, and, believe it or not, they’re still occasionally used for this purpose today.
As much as I love chickpeas, I really don’t want them in my morning coffee. Do you?
Esther’s hummus bi tahini
2½ to 3 cans garbanzo beans, drained (save liquid from one can)
Juice of three fresh lemons
¼ - ½ cup tahini *
¼ - ½ cup olive oil
3 cloves garlic, squeezed
3 tablespoons cumin
Salt and pepper to taste
Combine garbanzo beans, lemon juice, olive oil and tahini in food processor fitted with steel blade and process until pureed. If needed, add additional garbanzos, tahini, olive oil or the reserved liquid from garbanzos to adjust consistency. Add garlic and cumin and process briefly until just blended. Add salt and pepper to taste.
*Tahini is a sesame paste that can be found in gourmet and natural foods markets. Some supermarkets carry it. I recommend the version packaged in glass jars as opposed to metal cans; it makes a big difference in taste.
Esther’s note: I like this version best (as it reminds me of the first hummus I tasted), but you can get it just the way you like it by playing with the ratios of lemon juice, tahini, garlic and cumin.
Recipe by Esther Oertel.
Roasted chickpeas
One 15-ounce can garbanzo beans
1 ½ tablespoon olive oil
Salt to taste
Spice blend of your choice (see note)
Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
Drain the can of garbanzo beans in a strainer and rinse with water for a few seconds to clean off the beans. Shake and tap the strainer to get rid of excess water.
Lay paper towel on a baking sheet, and spread the beans over it. Use another paper towel to gently press and absorb the water from the beans. Roll the beans around with the paper towel to also remove the thin skin from them. Discard the skins and paper towels.
Drizzle the olive oil over the beans and use your hands or a spatula to toss them to coat.
Roast for 30 to 40 minutes until the beans are a deep golden brown and crunchy. Make sure the beans don’t burn.
Once roasted, season them with salt to taste and your preferred spice blend.
Recipe courtesy of the “Steamy Kitchen” blog at www.steamykitchen.com .
Esther’s note: You can vary the spice blend as desired; for example, use powdered chili and cumin for a Mexican-inspired snack. Here are two recommendations for spice variations:
For a list of ideas, this blog is fabulous: http://www.thekitchn.com/15-more-ways-to-flavor-roasted-106112 .
For a Moroccan-inspired blend, click here: http://www.kalynskitchen.com/2008/02/crispy-roasted-chickpeas-garbanzo-beans.html .
Esther Oertel, a freelance writer, cooking teacher, and speaker, is passionate about local produce and all foods in the vegetable kingdom. She welcomes your questions and comments and may be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .