Chick peas are one of nature's truly perfect
foods.....
Inside these cream-colored, mild-flavored, marble-size legumes, you'll
find hefty amounts of protein (but very little fat), slow-burning complex
carbohydrates, fiber (including the soluble fiber that may lower cholesterol),
B vitamins--especially folate (folic acid)--and minerals. The phytochemicals
in chick-peas include isoflavones and protease inhibitors.
Chick-peas are prized in several of the world's cuisines, Middle Eastern,
Indian, Italian, Spanish, and Latin-American among them. Their delicate
nutlike flavor makes them eminently adaptable to all sorts of recipes--salads,
soups, dips, and pasta or grain dishes. Chick-peas can also be roasted for
snacks, and are the basis for falafel, a Middle Eastern dish in which the
mashed beans are formed into balls and deep-fried (these can be baked, instead).
Chick-peas can be purchased dried, and cooked like other beans, but they
are also sold in cans, ready for use.
Dried chick-peas should be stored in a tightly closed container at cool
room temperature; they can be keep for up to a year, but since you don't
know how long they've sat on your supermarket shelf, plan to use them within
six months. Do not mix a new supply of chick-peas with older legumes; the
mixture of old and new stock will cook unevenly.
Store any leftover cooked chick-peas in a tightly closed container in the
refrigerator, where they will keep for three to four days. Cooked chick-peas
may also be frozen.
Preparation
Dried chick-peas have tough skins and are normally soaked before cooking.
If you don't have time to presoak them, expect the cooking time to be lengthened
by an hour or more. You can quick-soak chick-peas in an hour or let them
soak for eight hours or overnight. For either method, place the chickpeas
in a large pot (they will double in size soaking) and add enough water to
cover them by 2 inches. For long soaking let stand six hours at room temperature
or overnight in the refrigerator. For quick soaking, bring the water to
a boil and cook for two minutes. Remove the pot from the heat and let stand,
covered, for an hour.
It is best to cook chick peas (and other pulses) in a pressure cooker –
this will shorten the soaking time to one hour and the cooking time by about
90 minutes!
With any method, discard any chick-peas that float to the top after soaking
and pour off the soaking water. Then add enough fresh water to cover the
chick-peas by about 2 inches. Do NOT add salt as this will toughen the skins.
The chick-peas are done when they can be easily pierced with the tip of
a knife.
If using canned chick-peas, rinse and drain them thoroughly before cooking
to eliminate some of the sodium in the canning liquid. Plan to cook them
for as short a time as possible (just to heat them through). If they're
going into a salad or dip, the chick-peas need not be heated at all.
Jackdaw
January 2003
