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Oven Roasted Chickpeas – A fat free crunchy snack.

Madhuram — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 19:22:44 +0000

Long time back in one of Rachel Ray’s show I saw her frying canned chickpea on stove top and she was mentioning that its a nice and crispy snack. I always thought that chickpeas and green peas were deep fried in oil to get that crunchiness. I used to love these while growing up. It was my grandmother’s favorite snack too but we never made it at home. We used to get it from Ambica Depot. After seeing the show I also wanted to prepare it but somehow did not get to it until last week. Instead of sauteeing it in a pan, I decided to roast it in the oven. Otherwise you would have to stand nearby and keep stirring it.

I immediately googled to see if somebody has already done that and found a lot of results. Here I thought I was the smart one, with this brilliant idea! So I was going through a lot of those recipes and found that the oven temperatures, time to roast were different in each case and the reviews of the result were also mixed. So I decided to follow my own method and was really surprised that it worked out very well. My son generally likes chickpea by itself, but he liked these roasted chickpeas even more.

The recipe is very simple, actually it’s not a recipe at all. You have to just keep in mind the oven temperature and the time to roast it. The amount of chickpeas you want to roast, the seasonings are truly your call. As mentioned before you can roast it in a frying pan on stove top itself.

Ingredients

Chickpeas, cooked 3 and 1/2 cups

Red chili powder as per your taste

Garlic powder if you like it

Salt as per your taste

Procedure 1 Preheat oven at 425F for 15 minutes.

2 If using canned chickpea, open the can, drain it in a colander, rinse it with water. Dab the chickpeas with a clean kitchen towel or paper towel. Don’t wipe it dry, little moisture is recommended so that the seasonings stick to the chickpeas.

3 Transfer the chickpeas to a large baking sheet and add the chili powder and garlic powder. I did not use salt because I was using canned chickpeas which has salt in it already. I also read in another place that adding salt initially will not quicken the process of roasting because it will release moisture. So add it after roasting or better cook the chickpeas with little salt if you are not using the canned ones.

4 Leave it in the oven for 35-38 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. If you want crunchy chickpeas roast it for 38 minutes. My husband likes the crunchy-chewy texture, so 35 minutes was perfect. SO I took out some after 35 minutes and roasted the balance for another 3-4 minutes. Again keep in mind that oven temperatures vary, so check yours around 35 minutes first and then decide either to roast it further or not.

5 After 35 or 38 minutes, switch off the oven and leave the baking tray in the oven itself for another 10 minutes.

6 Fat free, guilt free roasted chickpeas are ready to be snacked on. It was so crunchy and addictive. We couldn’t stop nibbling on. Anyhow I managed to save some for the next day to see if it remained crunchy even then. I stored them in a closed container and left it on the counter. The crunchy ones were perfect the next day too, but the chewy-crunchy ones were bit difficult to chew.

My Notes
The only thing which I wish I done differently was lining the baking sheet with aluminum foil. It was very difficult to get rid of the burnt chickpea marks from the sheet.

This is my entry for
JFI – Chickpeas, hosted by MS. JFI created by Indira.
My Legume Affair hosted by Srivalli. The even originally created by Susan.

Fiber and Protein Fortified Poori

Madhuram — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 12:14:25 +0000

Yes, you read it right. I’m going to share my recipe for fortified poori. What does fortify mean? It means to add one or more ingredients to (a food) to increase its nutritional content. Those who have been following my posts for the past few days would know by this time that I have become a fan of The Sneaky Chef (which by the way is on sale on Amazon and I have ordered my copy yesterday). I’m finding ways to sneak healthy ingredients in my son’s diet.

I have been preparing beans and lentil chapathis for long time now. But until recently it did not occur to me to follow the same method with puri also. Actually the reason is, in the past 5 years I had made pooris only once because my husband is a diet freak and I’m addicted to puris. He doesn’t eat more than half a poori and I cannot limit my intake. Recently only I introduced poori to my son and guess whose gene he has inherited? Unfortunately mine! The book talks about adding white bean puree and chickpeas puree in some recipes. So I thought why not follow this in our poori recipe also.

Since I have decided to feed my son something deep fried in oil, I might as well make it a little more healthy by adding some protein and fiber rich beans. First I tried it with chickpeas and then with white beans (cannellini). Both came out very well and the pooris did not taste any different. The key here is the color of the beans. They both blend with the color of the whole wheat flour, so there is no change in the color of the pooris also, unlike the spinach pooris and tomato pooris. But I’m guessing here that kids might be interested in colorful pooris also. Usually my son finds out any different taste, but he couldn’t get it this time, he was as usual eating one poori after the other, asking for more.

I also make it a point to prepare pooris only twice a month and I make it only for him. I have a very very small frying pan, which my mother got from India. It holds very little oil, so I cannot make big pooris. I roll out the dough into one big circle and cut shapes using cookie cutters. If I use a big frying pan, I’ll be tempted to fry pooris for myself. It will also need more oil, than I would be frying some papads and vadams too, which I would end up eating all by myself. So this small pan is a
real savior.

Ingredients

White Beans or chickpeas (I used canned beans) 1/4 cup

Whole wheat flour 1/2 cup

Semolina/rava 1 teaspoon

Salt a pinch

Water as required

Oil (I used sunflower oil) for frying as needed

Yield: 20-24 small pooris or 6-8 medium size pooris

Procedure 1 If using canned beans, drain and rinse the beans first. If using dry beans, soak the beans overnight and cook it.

2 Heat the oil in a frying pan.

3 Puree the beans with little water. I used Magic Bullet’s small jar. The beans should be blended thoroughly without any lumps.

4 Now mix the puree with the other ingredients. Add water little by little because the dough for poori should be firm, otherwise the pooris will absorb way too much oil.

5 By this time the oil should be hot enough.

6 Since I make pooris in a small frying pan, I divide the dough into 2 balls. Roll out each ball into a big thin circle and then cut out different shapes using small cookie cutters and fry them one by one.

7 If using a bigger pan for deep frying, you may choose to divide the dough into 6-8 medium size balls. Roll out each into a thin circle and then fry it one by one.

My Notes 1 The pooris puffed up nicely. It looked exactly like pani pooris, but it did flatten after sometime. I don’t know if bigger size pooris would also puff up like this because we have added beans.

2 The first time I made the chickpeas poori, my blender was not working. So I had to mash it with my hands and potato masher. So it did have some tiny unmashed beans and the poori became a little red in those areas. Otherwise both the pooris were white in color. So you may notice small red spots in the first picture. But this did not stop my son from eating it! The second picture is the white beans poori.

3 1/4 cup of chickpeas has 3.5gms fiber and 3gms protein. 1/4 cup of white beans has 3gms fiber and 3.5gms protein. Also both the beans have considerable amount of Iron and little Calcium too. If I had prepared poori with 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour alone, my son would have got only 4gms fiber and 5gms protein. Now that I have added some beans he gets additional 6.5gms nutrition.

4 If there is a “Five and Below” store near your place look for the book Deceptively Delecious by Jessica Seinfeld. This one is also similar to the Sneaky Chef with lots of recipes to include healthy foods in kids’ meals. I got it for $5 in that store, the retail price of which is $20. Both the books have vegetarian and meat dishes, but I don’t mind it because it’s the methods which I’m interested and the photos are good and we can also get inspired to create our own sneaky recipes. Initially I thought of going to the copy place to make copies of necessary recipes from The Sneaky Chef and return the book to the library. But when I saw the price ($7.99 and plus free shipping if you are ordering something else, which I was going to anyway) I had to order it, because it’s way more cheaper than driving to the copy place, spending another 15-20 minutes there and money.)

Spinach and Chickpeas Gravy

Madhuram — Thu, 22 May 2008 09:13:54 +0000

This is a very simple side dish for chapathis/naan without lot of spices, yet very flavorful and healthy.

Ingredients:
Oil – 2 tablespoons
Garlic Cloves – 2, minced
Onion, medium size – 1, finely chopped
Salt – as per taste
Curry powder/garam masala – as per taste
Yogurt – 1 cup (I used low fat yogurt)
Milk – 1 cup (I used 2%)
Frozen chopped spinach (10 0z) – 1, thawed
Canned chickpeas (15 oz) – 1, drained and rinsed

Procedure:
1. Heat oil in a skillet.
2. Add the onion, salt and garlic and cook for 2 minutes.
3. Now add the curry powder and cook for another 1 minute.
4. Add yogurt, milk, thawed spinach and the drained chickpeas and let it simmer until all the flavors blend together.

My Notes:
1. The dish was nice and creamy. I actually added a mixture of full cream and milk, that definitely gave a richness to the gravy.

2. Be careful while adding salt because the canned chickpeas already has salt in it.

3. Update: I did not make the Naan. It’s the frozen variety we get in US, Deep Brand. Just heat it in the oven for 2 minutes, it’s ready to eat and you get a very nice fluffy naan. I also broil it for another 1-2 minutes to get a crunchy texture. The one in the picture is Garlic Naan and we absolutely love it. It’s so handy while entertaining friends also. But be sure to heat it just before eating and serve it immediately or else it tends to dry.

Dear Ranjeetha of Ranji’s Kitchen Corner has passed me the Nice Matters award. My another friend Divya of Dil Se has passed me the Rocking Girl Blogger Award. Thank you very much Ranji and Divya.

I would like to pass both the awards to my very good friend Dee of Ammalu’s Kitchen.