Dinner Tonight: Popcorn Chickpeas

Chickpeas are great roasted in the oven, too. Here's a recipe from my good friend Tubby-or-not-Tubby, posted on Prevention's South Beach Diet message board:

Roasted Chickpeas


Crispy Chick peas from Tubby or Not Tubby

First, open the can, drain and rinse. The rinsing will lead to less gas and fewer embarrasing excuses that invariably involve an old and innocent family pet.

Now take an old fashioned Baggie, not the pricey kind with ziplocs, but the big old fellows that need a bag tie.

Dump the peas into the bag and throw a TBLS of oil in after them. You can use olive oil if you wish, but since the peas are going to be subjected to a lot of heat, I prefer canola oil.

Puff out the bag so it resembles a balloon. Twist the top to keep the peas from escaping and shake the life out of it.

Stop shaking when every pea is coated with oil. Sample one or two to be sure; now stop snacking and add more oil if needed and resume shaking.

Now stare into your spice cupboard scratching your head until inspiration strikes. You may settle for (yawn) salt. I chose the Mrs Dash spice blend. Go crazy here and share your discovery.

Take a tsp or two of your selected salt/spice and throw it into the baggie. Sample again and add more to taste.

Shake up any peas that still remain after your wanton snacking and sampling. Shake till they're speckled with spicing.

Cover the pan with a sheet of foil. I like Release because nothing sticks to it. These likely won't stick to ordinary foil anyway, unless you like a lot of spice and totally cover up the film of oil on the individual peas, in which case,you're pretty well on your own...

Put the pan on the lower rack of an oven preheated to 400 degrees. If you've used the Release and precoated the peas you won't have to turn them.

When the first peas start turning black, don't panic. There are always a handful of wimpy chickpeas in every can that will discolor before their canmates. This is their futile bid to escape being eaten. At my place it doesn't work. Eat the suckers anyway and teach 'em a lesson.

Now put the other chickpeas back in till a few more start to blacken.

The remainder should be more or less uniform in their goldenness.

And every last one will be crisp.

I mention this to emphasize that, while chickpeas may seem to be dull and insensitive creatures --no doubt resulting from their identity crisis -- they're never quite sure if they're chickpeas, garbanzos or cicis -- they are in fact extremely sensitive and often appear to have a mind of their own.

They will demand your full attention during the latter stages of cookery. You'll know you have it right when you sink your teeth into one and it snaps in two like a peanut. If it's the least bit chewy, it's undercooked.

I should also add that these were canned peas. The procedure may or may not work as well with dried and soaked chickpeas. These things are just so damned tasty that I prefer to limit myself to the fixed quantities in the can.

OMG that was soooo funny...but I must try this one...tahnks
MB

I'm trying both recipes. They sound so good! Will report back. Given the oven , it make take a while!!!!