Chickpea

Chickpeas are round, beige legumes with a nutty taste and a firm, creamy texture once cooked. They are sold dried, canned and ground into flour. They are the base of hummus and falafel, and are used in curries, stews, salads and soups from India to the Mediterranean to Mexico.

How to do it

To cook dried chickpeas:

1. Soak them in plenty of cold water for 8 to 12 hours. They roughly double in size.
2. Drain, cover with fresh water by 5 cm (2 inches) and bring to a boil.
3. Simmer gently, partly covered, for 1 to 2 hours, until a chickpea crushes easily between your fingers.
4. Salt the water in the last 30 minutes.

For very soft chickpeas for hummus, add ½ teaspoon baking soda per liter of soaking or cooking water. 100 g dried gives about 200 to 250 g cooked.

How to use it

Chickpeas go by many names:

• Chickpeas in most English-speaking countries.
• Garbanzo beans in the US, especially on cans, from the Spanish word garbanzo.
• Chana in India. The large, pale chickpea is kabuli chana. The small dark one is kala chana, and split, skinned chickpeas are chana dal, cooked as a dal.
• Ceci in Italy and pois chiche in France.
• Kikärtor in Sweden.

A 400 g can gives about 240 g drained, which is about 1½ cups. See can sizes.

Keep the liquid from a can or the pot. That liquid is aquafaba, which whips like egg white. For hummus, blend warm chickpeas with tahini, lemon, garlic and a little ice water.

How to store it

Dried chickpeas keep a year or more in an airtight jar, but very old ones may never soften. Cooked chickpeas keep 4 to 5 days in the fridge in their liquid, or 3 months frozen.

Common mistakes

• Using very old dried chickpeas. They stay hard however long you cook them.
• Boiling them hard. They break apart on the outside before the middle is soft.
• Not rinsing canned chickpeas when you want a clean taste. The canning liquid is salty and starchy.

In recipes

You will see "1 can (400 g) chickpeas, drained and rinsed", "1 cup dried garbanzo beans, soaked overnight" and "chickpea flour", also called gram flour or besan in Indian recipes.