Garbanzo Beans Recipe
It is strange to me when foods have 2 names but are the same thing – sauce and gravy, soda and pop. The same confusion reigns when I think about garbanzo beans and chick peas. Is this some kind of alter ego thing? Can they not decide between being a pea or a bean or is it some kind of bi-legumality that, for one reason or another, most other other beans don’t share? They are equally proteinacious but more flexible when it comes to being labeled. A type of amPEAdextrousness? I never know what to call them. To make it easy on myself I take garbanzo as the formal if I am in a serious culinary discussion and chick pea as the informal. But if we are talking informal and I want to use the funnier word, I say garbanzo because garbanzo is the second funniest word in the human language. According to my friend Ben, booby is the funniest. I can only agree. See – makes you laugh every time you say it.
Perhaps even more informal is ceci or cece and chana. The Dutch swerve from the C words and call them kikker. I am not sure why. I thought kikker in Dutch meant frog, odd. When I go into the grocery store, I use a different name each time. The store clerks get garbanzo most of the time and chick pea all of the time. If I put my best fake Italian accent on and ask for ceci there are a lot of blank stares then a few announcements over the loud speaker – Customer needs assistance at aisle 3. It takes about 35 minutes to resolve. Then when I finally have the can in my hand I say Oh, Garbanzo Beans… No, chick peas… with a belly laugh and look of confusion. Then in the same best fake Italian accent I say “Why so many names for a pea?” By then the clerks have had enough and they just shrug and begrudgingly ask if there is anything else they can do for me hoping I will just go away.
Whether you call them garbanzo beans or chick peas matters little when it comes to taste. Garbanzo beans are fantastic to cook with and a large variety of dishes can be made with them from hummus (which, by the way, is Arabic for chick pea.) to one of my favorites, falafel! One of the easiest garbanzo beans recipe is to simply spice them and roast them until they are crunchy. Since practically any spice mix will do, you can have a huge variety of roasted garbanzos – even sweet ones. Sweet or savory, they make from a great snack or party food.
Here is my roasted garbanzo beans recipe..
- 1 16oz can of garbanzo beans (or is it chick peas?)
- 2 tbsp of olive oil
- 1 tbsp of salt
- 1 tbsp of garlic powder
- 1 tbsp of onion powder
- 2 tsp of fresh ground pepper
- 2 tsp of ancho chilli powder
- Preheat the oven to 350F.
- Drain the beans in a strainer and rinse well with cold water.
- Place the wet beans in a salad spinner and spin them to remove any excess water. Paper towels can also be used to dry the beans. Simply lay out a layer of paper towels, pour the beans on the towels, cover with more paper towels and gently pat them dry. The beans should be as dry as possible.
- In a small bowl mix the salt, garlic powder, onion powder, pepper and chilli powder. Mix the spices well.
- In a small bowl, toss the beans with olive oil. Season the beans to taste with spice mix.
- Pour the beans on to a baking tray that has been sprayed with non-stick spray.
- Roast the beans, stirring occasionally, for 30-40 minutes or until they are golden and crispy.
- Remove from the oven and let cool.
- Any spice mix, purchased or homemade, will do - blackened spice, cajun spice, even jerk spice. You will have left over spice mix with this recipe. The extra spice mix can be stored in an air tight container and used in other recipes.
I hope you enjoy.
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What is your favorite garbanzo beans recipe? Do you say garbanzo bean or chick pea?? Let us know all about it in the comments or on Facebook.
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