How to cook chickpeas
Not every housewife, passing by the counter with overseas chickpeas, rushes to buy a kilogram - another. It's just because he doesn't know how to cook chickpeas. They say that there is not always time to study new recipes, and it is better to choose something proven. The Eco-Life website will dispel this myth and will tell you in detail how to please your loved ones with an amazing delicacy from the unusual chickpea peas.
Mediterranean and Asian food represented by a variety of dishes based on chickpeas. The beans are eaten boiled and fried, served with stew, prepare exceptionally delicious pilaf, add to salads. Less commonly, you can see how chickpeas are cooked in soups.
Israel's most popular snack, hummus, is also made from mashed chickpeas. In Arab countries, the dish "falafel" is served to the table - balls of chickpea puree fried to a crisp crust, and in India, chickpeas are ground into flour, and cakes are made from it in a special recipe. And even alcoholic drinks can be made from chickpeas, similar to how sake is made from rice in Japan.
Cooking chickpeas consists of several stages:
Like any other legume crop, chickpeas must be soaked in water before the actual cooking process. For one glass of peas, you will need at least 4 glasses of ordinary boiled water at room temperature. Soaking lasts up to 12 hours (leave the container with the soaked peas overnight). If there is an urgent need to cook the dish early, in principle, you can start already after 4 hours - during this time the peas have time to properly nourish themselves with water.
Sometimes a little soda is added to the water where chickpeas are soaked (half a teaspoon per glass of chickpeas). This is done to soften the beans more. But, the truth is, this method has its own drawback - in the finished dish, the taste of soda is barely felt. If you don't need to puree the chickpeas, you can do without baking soda.
The soaked chickpeas are transferred to a saucepan and poured with fresh water. On the strongest fire, we wait until the workpiece boils, and turn off the heat to a minimum. In this position, we leave the chickpeas to cook for about 2 hours, without covering the pan with a lid.
Salt is not added to the container where the chickpeas are boiled. This is due to the fact that the salt does not allow the chickpeas to boil, and the whole process can be significantly delayed. Again, you can use this property of the saline solution for your own purposes - if the chickpeas are needed for mashed potatoes, do not add salt at all, and if you want whole grains, not boiled, salt can be added 30 minutes before the end of cooking.
Hulled chickpeas on store shelves are the exception rather than the rule. While it is not necessary to peel the chickpeas for most recipes, sometimes it is required to get a very delicate consistency.
Chickpeas are cleaned during cooking. An hour after the saucepan with chickpeas has stood on the fire, the hot water is drained, the peas are poured with cold water, and by hand, rubbing the peas between the palms of the hands, peel them off. Then the water is again changed to fresh, and put on fire for further cooking.
The result is a wonderful side dish, which, after adding spices, can already be served to the table, or used as an ingredient in any dish. For example, the hummus already mentioned here is obtained if the finished chickpeas in a blender are grated into a homogeneous mass with lemon juice, garlic and herbs. And if you twist boiled chickpeas with figs and dried apricots, add a little cognac and honey to the mass, you get a sweet mass for homemade sweets, which you just have to roll into balls. Sweet tooths will like it very much.
For those who have shifted the heavy burden of daily cooking onto the "shoulders" of the latest kitchen novelty of the multicooker, the preparation of chickpeas will seem like an interesting experiment with a very tasty result.
Before starting the preparation of chickpeas in a multicooker, the peas should be soaked in the above way. After soaking, chickpeas (350 gr.) Are spread in the bowl of the device, poured with water on the volume of peas, peeled and cut cloves of garlic (1 head) are added to it, everything is mixed, and the equipment is connected to the power supply, setting the "Pilaf" mode on the panel. After sounding the signal of the end of work, the chickpeas are laid out on plates, salt, spices, vegetable oil are added, and served to the table.
In fact, everything turns out quite easily, you just need to plan your time correctly so as not to involuntarily speed up the process, risking losing the best taste qualities chickpea. The finished dish is perfect for fasting - plant foods, which are high in protein, are a good substitute for meat. And for vegetarians, this is a real find that will give energy and strength for further existence.
Do you have any favorite chickpea recipes? Share via the comment form!
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Svetlana Frantseva "How to cook chickpeas" specially for the Eco-life website.
Chickpeas, also known as chickpeas, are widely used in many cuisines around the world, especially in eastern countries. In our region, this pulses are also becoming more and more popular. Soups, main courses, salads, side dishes, pastries and even desserts can all be prepared thanks to the neutral taste of chickpeas. Especially famous are such dishes as hummus (chickpea puree with spices) and falafel (balls of crushed chickpeas, deep fried).
I myself was convinced in practice how simple and convenient this healthy and nutritious product is to cook. However, there are some subtleties of its preparation. The most important step is pre-soaking. How to do it correctly, how much water you need to take, how much time will be optimal? Having answered all these questions, there is no doubt that chickpea dishes will definitely turn out delicious! It is also important to know some of the cooking features for a particular dish.
In general, preliminary soaking of any legumes is a standard procedure, all housewives are familiar with it. It is not enough just to add water to Turkish chickpeas.
There are some rules:
We put the peas washed in running water in any convenient container, fill with water and, covered with a lid, leave for at least 4 hours. The fact is that this is exactly how long it takes for the beans to be saturated with liquid. And this statement applies to relatively freshly dried peas.
If the chickpeas have been stored for a long time, then the soaking time should be increased.
Therefore, for me personally, it is much more convenient for me to soak overnight, since I do not know the time of collection. You can't spoil chickpeas in 12 hours.
So that the fermentation process does not accidentally begin in the peas, I put it in a cool place during the hot season.
Another important point is that you do not need to add salt during soaking. And during cooking, salt at the end if you are cooking chickpeas for mashed potatoes or salads. Otherwise, stick to the recipe. For example, when cooking pilaf, chickpeas are added to the already salted zirvak.
I would also like to dwell on soaking for mashed potatoes. In general, a mushy chickpea mass is the basis of many delicious dishes, so the secrets of making delicate mashed potatoes are very valuable.
To make the chickpeas boil faster, there is one little trick - a pinch of baking soda when soaking.
By the way, some people mistakenly believe that hot water when soaked improves and accelerates the cooking process. This is not the case - at high temperatures, the protein curls up and prevents water from penetrating into the bean.
After soaking, the chickpeas must still be boiled properly. Here you should take into account what result is needed:
For example, for soup, we first boil the chickpeas themselves almost until cooked, and only then we introduce the rest of the products. If the recipe contains meat, then the chickpeas are introduced as soon as the broth boils.
Pilaf with chickpeas is very popular. In this case, add the chickpeas soaked in advance when the meat with vegetables has already been fried and filled with hot water for cooking zirvak. So the chickpeas have time to cook.
At the end, I want to discuss whether it is necessary to soak chickpeas at all? On this occasion, I even had a small argument with a friend. She was sure that even without soaking, chickpeas cooked no worse, it just took a little more time. Like, why bother then. In fact, it is really possible to boil chickpea beans without soaking, but they turn out to be boiled on the outside and dense on the inside. That is, they do not look very good in soup or pilaf, and they are not quite suitable for mashed potatoes.
As you can see, soaking chickpeas is a necessary and completely uncomplicated process. A little patience, a little experience and delicious nutritious chickpea dishes are sure to surprise your family and friends!
- - If you want the chickpeas to soften faster, soak them in boiling water for 1 hour.
- - Sometimes peas are soaked for 2 - 3 days until the beans sprout, such chickpeas are rich in protein, have great nutritional value and are more useful for the human body. During this soaking, the water is changed every 4 to 5 hours.
- - When buying chickpeas, make sure you are buying fresh legumes that are not stale. The older the chickpea, the longer it takes to soak and cook. Also, such chickpeas can lose their shape and become crumbly during cooking.
These dishes can be prepared with both canned chickpeas and dry ones. In the first case, cooking takes less time, but self-boiled chickpeas are more aromatic and tasty.
If the recipe requires soaked chickpeas, then the dry chickpeas must first be soaked in cold water overnight. If boiled chickpeas are needed, then after soaking, drain the water from it, rinse, add clean water and cook over low heat for 1.5–2 hours.
Please note: after soaking, the chickpeas will approximately double. So the weight of dry chickpeas should be half the specified amount of soaked or boiled chickpeas.
taste.com.auCut the chicken thighs in half and rub the spices on all sides. Heat some oil over medium-high heat in a deep skillet or baking dish. Fry the chicken for a few minutes on each side until golden brown. Then transfer to a plate.
Pour the remaining oil into the skillet. Place the sliced onion and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add chopped garlic and spices and cook for another minute for flavor. Then add tomato pulp, chickpeas, dried apricots, cut in half, broth or water and honey. Season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil and stir in the fried chicken.
Cover and place in the oven preheated to 180 ° C for 45 minutes. The chicken should be soft. Serve with couscous, rice, or any other side dish of your choice.
Heat half the oil in a skillet over high heat. Cut the pork into large cubes and cook for 3-4 minutes, turning occasionally, until the meat is browned on all sides. Transfer the pork to a large baking dish.
Cut the onion into thin half rings, the celery into small cubes and the carrots into thin slices. Heat the remaining oil in a skillet and add the vegetables. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes, until tender.
Add ginger and spices, stir and fry for another minute. Then add the tomatoes, broth or water, chickpeas and raisins and bring to a boil.
Fill in vegetable sauce pork, cover and bake in the oven at 180 ° C for 1.5 hours, until the meat is tender. Serve the stew with boiled vegetables, couscous, or another side dish of your choice.
Rinse the chickpeas, transfer to a saucepan and cover with clean water. Cook for half an hour over low heat. Then add the chicken to the chickpeas and cook for about 30 minutes more.
Meanwhile, cut the onion into half rings and the rest of the vegetables into cubes. Heat oil in a skillet and brown onions and carrots. Add celery and cook for a couple of minutes. Then add the peppers to the vegetables and fry for another 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Remove the drumsticks from the pan, separate the meat from the bones, chop coarsely and put back. Add the vegetable fry to the broth and bring the soup to a boil. Add chopped parsley, spices and, if necessary, some water. Stir, remove from heat, cover and leave for another 15 minutes.
You can find a few more recipes for chickpea soups in this article:
Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat. Place onion sliced in half rings and fry until golden brown. Cut the chili in half, remove the seeds and chop finely. Grind the cumin lightly in a mortar. Add chili, cumin, finely chopped garlic, coriander and turmeric to the onions. Stir and cook for another minute.
Slice cauliflower on inflorescences. Place the halved tomatoes and cauliflower in the skillet and add the water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and cook, covered, for about 6 minutes. Add the chickpeas and green beans and simmer, covered, for about 3 minutes.
Add chopped herbs, salt and pepper and stir to combine. Serve curry with rice or another side dish of your choice.
Brush the salmon fillet with a tablespoon of oil and rub with salt and pepper. Place the fish in a preheated skillet and grill over high heat for 1–2 minutes on each side. Salmon should not be completely cooked through. Place the fish on a plate and dry the pan with a paper towel.
Whisk eggs in a bowl, add cumin, salt, pepper, chopped garlic and grated zest of two lemons and mix well. Then add the dry chickpeas, crumbled ricotta and cilantro, leaving a couple of twigs to garnish, and stir gently.
Heat the remaining oil in a skillet over high heat and brush the bottom and sides with it. Pour in the egg mixture and cook over moderate heat for about 10 minutes. Cut fish into small pieces and place on frittata.
Place the pan in an oven preheated to 180 ° C for a few minutes. Sprinkle the frittata with cilantro leaves before serving.
Heat the oil in a skillet and fry the finely chopped onion in it until golden brown. Add the meat to the onion and cook over medium heat, turning occasionally until browned. Add seasoning, minced garlic and chickpeas without liquid and cook for a few more minutes.
Then add chopped parsley, rice, previously soaked in water for 10-15 minutes, paprika and tomato paste and mix well. Pour in 500 ml of water and cook until the amount of liquid is halved. Reduce heat, cover and cook for another 15-20 minutes.
Cut off the tops of the peppers, remove the seeds and fill the vegetables with the filling. Pour the remaining water into a deep baking dish and place the peppers with the filling facing up. Cover the dish with foil and place in the oven preheated to 180 ° C for 20-30 minutes.
Slice the onion into rings. In a deep skillet with thick sides or in a cauldron, heat the oil over high heat and fry the onion on it until dark golden brown. Place the coarsely diced meat to the onion. Fry for about 8 minutes, turning the slices occasionally.
Cut the carrots into small, thick strips, add to the skillet and cook for another 5 minutes. Then pour in the water so that it completely covers the lamb. Peel the garlic. Add whole garlic and chili to the skillet.
Add chickpeas and salt. It is better to put more of it, as the rice will absorb some of the salt. Add a little more water to cover the ingredients and cook for about 10 minutes. Take out the garlic and pepper, add the rice, previously soaked in water for half an hour, and cook until the water evaporates.
Place the garlic and chili in the rice and sprinkle with the cumin. Cook covered over low heat for another 30 minutes. Stir the pilaf before serving.
Cut the onion into small cubes and fry in hot oil until golden brown. Grind the chickpeas in a blender until smooth. Combine it with onions, spices, chopped herbs, and an egg. You can add other spices to your taste.
Form cutlets from the resulting mass and roll in breadcrumbs on both sides. Fry the patties in hot oil for a few minutes on both sides, turning occasionally until they are golden brown.
Cut the onion into small cubes and cover with cold water. This will remove unnecessary bitterness. Dice the rest of the vegetables and chop the parsley. Combine chickpeas with pepper, cucumber, herbs and crumbled feta.
For dressing, combine oil, vinegar, minced garlic and spices. Add the onion, the dressing to the main ingredients and mix the salad well. Anna_Shepulova / Depositphotos.com
Place the chickpeas, 3 garlic cloves, cumin, salt, chopped parsley, and 1 lemon zest in a blender and chop. You should have a small crumb. Add flour to this mass and mix well.
Blind balls with a diameter of 3-5 cm and roll them in bread crumbs... Heat oil in a deep skillet. There should be enough oil so that the chickpea balls can float in it. Put them in hot oil and fry until golden brown on all sides. Transfer the falafel to a paper towel to drain off the grease.
For the sauce, combine sour cream or yogurt, chopped garlic clove, finely grated cucumber, chopped dill, salt, pepper, and the remaining lemon zest. Cut each pita in half and unfold. Brush the inside of them with sauce, put inside lettuce, tomato slices, onion rings and a few falafels each.
Grind nuts, dates, cocoa and cinnamon in a blender. Add chickpeas in portions and beat until smooth. If the dish turns out to be dry, pour in a little broth in which the chickpeas were cooked. Then add honey and mix well.
Store hummus in the refrigerator for no more than 3 days. It can be used as a cake cream or for making sweet sandwiches. You can also dip fruit into it.
Drain the chickpea and rub it between your palms to remove the skin. If the chickpeas are boiled, rinse them with cold water to avoid scalding. Grind the chickpeas in a blender until smooth.
Combine chickpea puree with beaten eggs, 150 g icing sugar, baking powder, 2 tablespoons of cinnamon, and grated zest and juice of a whole orange. Grease a baking dish with butter and place the dough in it.
Bake at 180 ° C for an hour. After baking, open the oven and leave the cake there for another 10 minutes. Combine the remaining powdered sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle with this mixture on the cake before serving.
Do you want to cook an unusual, but very interesting pilaf? Try chickpea pilaf. It can be meaty and lean, but whatever this dish is, it will surprise guests with purely oriental notes. In addition, such pilaf is more useful - chickpeas, or chickpeas, as it is called in the countries of the Middle East, helps to lower cholesterol in the body.
The legume crop of chickpeas is different in preparation from cereal rice. Rice is cooked for about 30 minutes or more, while chickpeas need at least an hour and a half to be cooked completely. Therefore, cooking peas is accelerated by pre-soaking. This is done a day or, in extreme cases, 12 hours before the start of the process.
Chickpeas are composed mostly of vegetable protein, which, when combined with water, gives a rapid souring of the liquid. The water needs to be changed periodically, filling the peas with fresh ones. Chickpeas are soaked at the rate of four glasses of water per glass of peas.
Tip: If you put soaked chickpeas in the refrigerator, the infusion will not sour. It is useful to wash with such a concentrated infusion, it has a good effect on the skin, cleansing, rejuvenating and refreshing it.
Such pilaf is traditionally prepared in Tashkent, Samarkand and Fergana. If you want to make a real Uzbek pilaf with chickpeas, buy high-quality and light peas.
Any region of Central Asia has its own version of pilaf. It depends on the rice grown in the area, because the Uzbeks from ancient times used the products that were at hand for cooking. Therefore, most often devzira (a local rice variety), Uzbek yellow carrots were used (there is nothing special in it, except for a lower price and the tradition of interfering with two varieties of carrots in pilaf). Plus onions, lamb or beef (mostly Muslims live in the country), as well as some spices. If you see a recipe for real Uzbek pilaf with caraway seeds, dill, finally, with bay leaves and other seasonings, spices, do not believe it! Uzbeks prepare real pilaf only with a limited composition of spices.
Many add raisins for sweetness. Everything, nothing else is put.
Now about how many products you need to cook for pilaf with chickpeas. This is about a pound of meat, the same amount of carrots and rice, a couple of medium-sized onions, a head of garlic, 150 grams of fat tail, 200 g of dry peas, half a glass of vegetable oil, a pinch of cumin and a handful of barberry.
Do not be afraid that the onions will overcook or burn. The temperature of the oil when the meat is immersed will drop sharply, the onion will simply boil in the meat juice and cook properly.
Tip: It is generally recommended to fill the water two fingers above the rice. This is not entirely true, because the surface area of the cauldron is not taken into account (there is a difference between the plane of the duck and the frying pan), the degree of soaking of the rice, and finally, the width of the fingers. So it is better to underfill and add liquid later than pour it over and get a viscous porridge.
Any dish from Stalik Khankishiev is a culinary work of art. He also cooks very tasty with chickpeas. Like everything that this connoisseur of national cuisine does, this pilaf has its own characteristics.
First, the proportions. Stalik's law - there should not be a lot of meat in pilaf, Uzbeks do not put meat at the forefront. But you need a lot of carrots. But still, a kilogram of meat is usually taken, the same amount of rice and carrots, but there are very few onions - a couple of onions just to create flavor and color. The color of pilaf, contrary to popular belief, is given by onions, and not carrots, as many think. Carrots, on the other hand, give a special aroma and sweetness to pilaf. That is why Stalik advises her to take the hardest, densest, so that it does not sour when cooking, and not young. But yellow or regular - your choice, which one you find.
Take chickpeas at random. If you love it - take more, you are not sure - half a glass is enough. Stalik calls this pilaf Samarkand, which means that, in addition to chickpea, it contains large pieces of meat.
In a slow cooker, crumbly pilaf is obtained, and it is prepared like this.
You can also cook pilaf with chicken. For 600 g of chicken fillet you need a glass of rice and chickpeas, a couple of carrots and onions, garlic, pepper and spices.
Vegetables and meat are fried in a slow cooker, soaked peas are added to them, then rice, everything is poured with water, salted, spices are added and everything is cooked in the pilaf mode. The pilaf turns out to be fast, juicy and tasty.
Plov with duck and prunes has a piquant taste. For him you need a meaty duck, duck fat. A small amount of vegetable oil melts fat and fat from the skin. Having taken out the fry, put onion half rings there and fry until transparent. Add the sliced breast, fry, pouring with a mixture of honey (2 tablespoons) and 1 orange. Put prunes cut into strips on the meat. Next comes the soaked chickpeas, which we cover with a layer of boiling water and let cook for half an hour, then slices of orange and soaked rice are put. Add water and cook until tender over low heat.
Even meat lovers eat vegetarian pilaf with chickpeas with pleasure. It is hearty, light, unusual. Lean pilaf is easy to prepare. Chickpeas are soaked in advance, before cooking rice. Then carrot strips are fried in oil. Then the bow is added to it. Put spices and chickpeas into the fried onions, then add rice, salt (about one and a half tablespoons), pour in boiling water to cover the rice, and put on the smallest fire to cook. The readiness of pilaf is determined by tapping: if the rice, when tapped on it with a slotted spoon, responds with a dull sound, it is ready.
Sometimes in lean pilaf soy meat is added with chickpeas.
This is pilaf with boiled rice and chickpeas.