What Can’t You Make With Chickpeas?

May 22, 2013

I’m partial to chickpeas — or garbanzo beans, if you prefer — and not because they were among the first legumes I ever ate. (My mother would open a can and put them out at parties, with salt and pepper; you can do better than that. Sorry, Mom.) They have what to me is an irresistibly robust and nutty flavor, and a texture that can run from crunchy to tender.

In addition to canned, you may see fresh chickpeas; peel them and cook them quickly, as if they were favas or peas. Increasingly you can find chickpea flour, also called besan or gram flour, in Indian markets, where it’s most common, though it’s also becoming more popular as a flour substitute for the gluten-intolerant.

But dried is the most common form. Dried chickpeas take longer to cook than other beans (two hours is a likely cooking time); use enough water, and the process is stress-free. One major benefit to cooking chickpeas yourself — aside from the superior flavor and texture — is that the water you cook them in becomes particularly rich and flavorful by the time they’re done. Save it for soups like the cold one here, which is a refreshing riff on hummus.

You’ll miss out on the soup stock, but canned chickpeas bear a closer resemblance to cooked-from-dried than any other canned bean: they’re sturdy enough to withstand additional cooking without falling apart; make the crisp spiced chickpeas here, and you’ll see what I mean. Even after a 20-minute sizzle in a skillet with olive oil, they stay intact, their exteriors turning crunchy while their insides become creamy. Serve these as a party snack instead of roasted nuts, and you’ll have a hit.

You’ll get a similar result if you start cooking with chickpea flour. Made from nothing more than ground-dried chickpeas, it has that same distinct nuttiness as the whole bean; try it once, and you’ll keep it in your kitchen forever. Two reasons I’m so confident: socca and panelle. The first is essentially a large chickpea pancake from Provence (and neighboring Liguria, where it’s called farinata). It’s traditionally cooked in wood ovens on copper disks, roughly cut and served hot or warm. (In the main market in Nice, it’s baked a few hundred yards away and delivered by bicycle, to be wrapped in paper and eaten on the street.) If you have no wood or copper, that’s no problem. They’re nearly as great in a skillet or in a pizza pan in your oven, and totally foolproof.

You may have eaten panelle served as “chickpea fries,” and that’s not a bad name for them. You make a thick porridge of chickpea flour, spread it evenly into a pan and let it cool. As with thick polenta (which this resembles), you can then cut the paste into any shape you like — diamonds, squares or French fries, and fry until golden. They are not only among the easiest things to fry (there’s very little spattering), but they’re also gorgeous, and better than “real” fries in just about every regard.

Except, of course, you can’t buy them on every corner. Yet.

Three Things | Jenny Rosenstrach

Last week I made socca, aka savory chickpea pancakes, and as soon as we finished, I started plotting when we could have them again. Socca is a popular street food in the French Riviera, often eaten in wedges chased down with a chilled glass of wine, but it became a thing in the US a decade ago, as soon as gluten-free eating started dominating the food headlines. Made from chickpea flour (aka besan or garbanzo bean flour), it’s grain-free, and I’ve long loved it as a sort of “healthy pancake,” good for stretching out odds and ends of the vegetable drawer. For some reason, though, this time was extra special. I think because I doubled down on the chickpea quotient, topping the pancakes with crispy spicy chickpeas, then added sautéed cooked mushrooms and kale, and drizzled the whole number with a dill-heavy yogurt sauce. The beauty of the dinner is that it’s endlessly flexible, and the socca part of it eminently memorize-able: 1 to 1 chickpea flour to water, plus a salt and little olive oil. You don’t even need a leavening agent. Here’s your how-to:

Socca, aka Savory Chickpea Pancakes

This makes 8 medium size pancakes or (my preference) four giant pancakes. The general portion rule I go by is ½ cup chickpea flour and a ½ can (or ¾ cup) fried chickpeas per diner. You can find chickpea flour in the Bob’s Red Mill section of most supermarkets or online.

2 cups chickpea flour, aka garbanzo bean flour or besan
2 cups water
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon olive oil (plus more for frying)

Mix all ingredients together and let rest for 30 minutes. (This helps with the interior creaminess factor, but it’s ok if you skip the resting.) Set a cast iron or nonstick pan over medium-high and add a tablespoon of olive oil right before you are ready to fry your socca. Spoon enough batter to make round pancake that spreads across the whole pan, as shown. The batter will be thin, almost crepe-like. Flip, when underside is cooked and crispy around the edges, after about 1 minute, gently scraping underneath with a rubber spatula first to loosen. Remove to a foil-covered plate to keep warm and repeat with the remaining batter.

Toppings

Crispy chickpeas Drain (if canned), then fry chickpeas in a generous amount of oil, letting them sit in one layer for 5 minutes, then toss again, cook another 5 minutes, remove to a paper towel, and season with salt, pepper, cayenne, smoked paprika.

Your choice of vegetables I sautéed kale, mushrooms, and onions but other good options: spinach, Brussels, roasted eggplant, potatoes, broccoli, and tomatoes. (As I type this, I feel like you could also roast the chickpeas alongside the vegetables to simplify; let me know if you do it this way.)

Drizzle Sauce Whisk together ½ cup plain yogurt (cashew cream to make vegan) 2 tablespoons olive oil, 3 tablespoons chopped fresh dill (I like it very dilly), 2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives, 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, 1 tablespoon prepared horseradish, a squeeze of honey or agave to taste, kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Or just top socca pancakes with plain yogurt and tamarind sauce

Socca | The Bittman Project

Years ago, Kerri and I started making mock socca with different flours – because, after all, it’s just a big thin pancake. Wheat is good: buckwheat, too. There are undoubtedly traditions in using these, not for socca/farinata, but for similar roasted pancakes elsewhere.

Last night, I did it with purple barley, which was local (and given to me by Glynwood’s resident grain genius, June Russell) – and it was sensational. (Hayden Flour grinds it, as do others. I ground my own, I’m proud/embarrassed to report, with my little MockMill.) I will confess I used a little sourdough and let the thing rest for a few hours first, but that was because I have the sourdough. But let me walk you through it both ways:

Traditional: Mix one cup chickpea flour (or fava bean flour, or a combination, or almost any whole-grain or whole-bean flour) with warm water to a thin pancake flour consistency; it should be pourable. Add a big pinch of salt and about a teaspoon of black pepper. You can let it sit for a while (and this was always part of our recipe, though really, I’m not sure it matters) or just proceed. Heat the oven to 500°F; while it’s heating, put a 12- or 14-inch round pan in there (the bigger one is better) – it can be a devoted socca pan, or a cast-iron skillet, or something like this awesome comal from Masienda. When it’s hot, add about ¼ cup of oil; put some chopped onion in the batter (let’s say 1 medium), and some rosemary if you have it, and pour that into the pan – be careful, obviously – trying not to let the pan cool much. It’ll sizzle. Bake, turning the pan occasionally, about 10 minutes or a little longer, until the socca browns on the edges and is dry elsewhere. (Better to let it burn a little on the edges than to have the center too moist, in my opinion.) Eat immediately.

Adapted: Mix about 50g each of starter and water with 100g of flour (I used barley, as I said, but again any whole-grain flour or bean flour will work), and water and stir; add water if necessary to make a thick, stirrable batter. Let sit for an hour, or six – I don’t think this matters much. Heat the oven and proceed as above, thinning the batter at the last minute with more water to make it pourable. Bake as above also. [Editor’s note: You can find another of Mark’s socca recipes here.]

I write this at 7:30 a.m. I assure you I will be making another tonight. Once you start, you cannot stop.