Native to the Mediterranean region, chickpeas are the original super food. With their nutty flavour, chickpeas are the perfect legume for casseroles, spices, salads and soups.
The humble chickpea is a rich source of protein and iron making it the ideal fasting food. And you can snack on skinned and roasted chickpeas – readily available from nut shops and grocers – to give you the energy boost you need in your busy life.
Consumption of chickpeas is believed to have originated in the Middle East some 7,000 years ago and is believed to be one of earliest cultivated legumes. The domesticated chickpea has been found in ceramics all over the Middle East as early as the Neolithic era 6500 BC and in Greece as far back as early Bronze Age in Thessaly about 3500 BC.
The original domestication most likely happened in the caucuses and spread to the Mediterranean, India, and during Roman times to the west. In classical Greece its name was Erevinthos, hence revithia, the Greek word for chickpeas. Ancient Greeks were said to have eaten their chickpeas young and raw, and would often used them for desserts. The first written reference to the chickpea is in Homer’s The Iliad.
During Alexander the Great’s campaigns the armies were fed with baked chickpeas, stragalia and dried figs. Two of natures great goods – legumes and fruit. During World War II and the post-war years when coffee was scarce and could only be found on the black market, chickpeas were used to make coffee. It’s an extremely versatile legume, and can be utilised in many different ways. Soaps, stews, baked, with vegetables, with meat, ore made into dips: the famous one being hummus The word hummus literally means chickpea in Arabic. Falafel is the Middle Eastern version of the Greek revithokeftedes.
When using chickpeas for cooking, you can either buy them as a dried legume or tinned. The tinned variety is fine for a quick meal or salad but once you invest in the time to use dried chickpeas, and soak them before cooking, you will never look back. The intensity of the flavour and the nutty texture is incomparable. Preparing chickpeas can be a timely task but it’s not at all laborious. When you plan on cooking chickpeas, they should be soaked in cool water overnight. But even before you do this, place the chickpeas in a bowl and search for anomalies such as off chickpeas, or even stones.
If you don’t have time to soak them overnight, aim for a minimum of four hours; the longer the better for the flavour release of the legume. Once they have been soaked, rinse them off and prepare to boil them in salty water over a medium-high heat. They should be in a full casserole dish of water with at least two inches of salted water covering them. The chickpeas will take at least an hour-and-a-half to two hours to become tender and edible. If you are adding them to a casserole, simply adjust the cooking time accordingly.
If you are cooking a stew then add them in when there is enough juice to cover the chickpeas and remember, that they do expand slightly so continue adjusting the recipe as needed. If you add the chickpeas from the beginning of the cooking process, they will soak up the flavour of the casserole as well as maintain their natural nutty flavour. Lemon and chickpeas is one of those flavour combinations sent to us by the angels. Toss in a little olive oil, mint, cracked pepper and you have yourself a delicious and hearty chickpea salad right there.
Added in soups, chickpeas give a robust savoury texture to a prominent vegetarian soup. Grab your food processor and whack in some cooked chickpeas, a bit of the cooking water, some lemon juice, garlic and olive oil and you have yourself a healthy dip alternative.