Chickpeas: a multitalented form of protein

Denise Roig

• Last Updated: December 01. 2009 5:18PM UAE / December 1. 2009 1:18PM GMT

Chickpeas are cheap, available year-round and easy to store. istockphoto

“Wrinkled little things,” I remember thinking when my Puerto Rican grandmother put a bowl of beans on rice in front of me. I was maybe four years old and a picky eater.

Ceci, my Ita called them in her limited English. The beans looked funny, but they tasted lovely: firmer than limas, tastier then kidneys and miles better than the canned “baked” beans that came in a gluey tomato base.

Ceci, garbanzo or chickpea, this legume of many names and many nations is also multitalented. Douse a can of drained chickpeas with olive oil and lemon juice, toss in crushed garlic, herbs, diced tomatoes, cucumbers and a cup of couscous, and you have an instant, protein-packed salad. Soak dry beans overnight, then grind with handfuls of coriander and parsley, onion, garlic and spices, and you’ve got the batter for falafel.

Then there is the magic that happens when chickpeas meet a blender and a scoop of tahina. Hummus makes this part of the world go around.

Chickpeas originated in the Middle East about 7,500 years ago. (The metre-high chickpea bush loves a hot, dry climate.) Popular among the ancient Greeks, Romans and Egyptians, the chickpea is even mentioned in The Iliad under its Latin name. The Roman orator Cicero was so named because of the chickpea-shaped wart on his nose. But it wasn’t until the 16th century, when Spanish explorers brought chickpeas west, that they found another hospitable growing climate in the Mediterranean basin.

Their leading role in many cuisines is easy to understand. Chickpeas are cheap, available year-round and easy to store. Their high protein count makes them an excellent replacement for meat, plus they’re high in fibre and help lower cholesterol. Something else that’s reassuring: unlike most other vegetables, chickpeas don’t lose nutrients when canned. The choice, then, on whether to open a can or to soak them overnight before cooking hinges on time and the recipe at hand.

Hassan al Shoufi, a cook at Beirut Restaurant and Grill in Al Wahda Mall, doesn’t need a recipe to make the takeaway restaurant’s popular chickpea dish: fatteh. The Syrian-born chef has been making and eating it most of his life. I’ve been eating it for just a year, but now can’t live without the hearty mélange of toasted pitta, yogurt, pine nuts, garlic and ghee on a bed of warm chickpeas.

There’s a hungry, mostly patient lunch crowd at Beirut’s counter, where between 50 and 75 bowls of fatteh are dished up daily, but al Shoufi invites me in to the back kitchen anyway.

“The first thing,” he says, showing me the pot of simmering chickpeas, “is not to let the beans get too soft.” He stirs a small bowl of yogurt and tahina before swiftly and deftly placing bits of crisp pitta in the bottom of a container, covering them with the chickpeas and layering them with the yogurt mixture.

“You can add minced meat at this point if you want,” he says. When I confess that I’m a vegetarian, he looks at me with sympathy. But there it is: an entire meal in a takeaway container in less than five minutes.

“It’s so easy to make, but so good also,” al Shoufi says. “All the people like fatteh.”

Fatteh

To save time, this recipe uses canned chick peas, and, to add a bit of green, chopped parsley. Serves 4.



2 pitta breads

400g can chickpeas (do not drain)

400g plain, full-cream yogurt

35g tahina

1.25ml salt

1.25ml ground cumin

5ml olive oil



15ml fresh lemon juice

15ml olive oil

Pinches of salt & cumin

20g ghee

2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

40g pine nuts

5g parsley, chopped



Preheat the oven (a toaster oven is perfect) to 180°C. Bake the pittas for 12 to 15 minutes until cracker-crisp. Break into bite-size pieces and place in the bottom of a shallow, 20cm by 25cm casserole dish with straight sides. Heat the chickpeas in their juice in a small saucepan. Whisk yogurt, tahina, salt, cumin and olive oil in a small bowl. Using a slotted spoon, ladle the chickpeas over the pitta pieces. Drizzle with lemon juice and olive oil. Add pinches of salt and cumin.

Melt the ghee in a small pan over a high flame. Spoon the yogurt-tahina mixture over the chickpeas. Fry the garlic in the hot ghee, cooking for a minute before adding the pine nuts. Cook for another minute until nuts and garlic are brown but not burnt. Spoon evenly over the fatteh. Top with parsley. Serve immediately.