Baked Chickpeas with Pita Chips
and Yogurt

RECIPE

Note: To make this gluten-free, make your chips from gluten-free wraps or pitas. To make this vegan or dairy-free, make a lemon-tahini sauce, minus the yogurt. (It can be thinned with water, once you get the lemon level where you like it.)

Serves 6 generously, if eaten nacho-style

Ingredients

For the chickpeas

• 1 pound dried chickpeas (garbanzo beans) or 4 15-ounce cans cooked chickpeas

• 1/4 cup olive oil

• 2 medium yellow onions, halved and thinly sliced

• 3 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced

• 2 teaspoons ground cumin

• 2 teaspoons ground coriander

• 1 teaspoon paprika or sumac

• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne, spoonful of harissa or a couple shakes of your favorite hot sauce (all adjusted to your heat preference)

• Few gratings fresh lemon zest

• 2 teaspoons coarse sea or kosher salt (what I used for lightly salted broth, use more for unsalted, less for salted or canned beans)

• 4 cups vegetable broth (for dried but soaked chickpeas), 1 1/2 cups vegetable broth (for cooked chickpeas)

• 1 cup or more of water (will likely only need if beans weren’t pre-soaked)

Fixings (all instructions below)

• Fresh pitas for pita chips

• Big handful of parsley (or a mix of parsley, cilantro and mint would be good too)

• 1/4 cup pine nuts

• Tomato-cucumber “relish” salad

• Lemon-tahini yogurt or plain yogurt

• Additional paprika or sumac for sprinkling

Instructions

Soak dried chickpeas: Do you have to soak beans before you cook them? Nope, no, nope. But it will save a lot of cooking time, making this more of a one-hour weeknight meal. So, if you can plan ahead, soak them in an ample amount of water at room temperature for 24 hours. Don’t have 24 hours? I soaked mine for 3. I will make final cooking time estimations based on soaking times. Using canned beans? Skip this step entirely.

Prepare your chickpeas: Heat oven to 375°F (190°C). In a large, heavy pot such as a Dutch oven (mine was 4 quarts, an ideal size), heat olive oil in the bottom of the pan over medium-high heat. Add onions and cook for 5 minutes, until they begin to soften. Add garlic and saute garlic and onions together for 3 to 4 minutes more, until everything is wilted. Add spices, zest and salt and cook with onions and garlic for one minute. Add drained soaked or canned chickpeas and:

• for already cooked or canned chickpeas: 1 1/2 cups broth

• for dried chickpeas that have been soaked: 4 cups broth

• for dried chickpeas that have not been soaked: 4 cups broth and 1 cup water to start

Bring mixture to a boil and boil for one full minute. Place a lid on the pot and transfer it carefully to the oven.

Bake your chickpeas: Please keep in mind that cooking beans isn’t a perfect science, and the amount absorbed if pre-soaked or not, the age and freshness of the chickpeas and even the softness of ones from a can are going to affect how much cooking time and liquid is needed. But, these estimates are fairly solid from my experience:

• for already cooked or canned chickpeas: bake for 15 minutes

• for dried chickpeas that had been soaked: bake for 45 minutes (estimate for 24 hours soaking) to 75 minutes (estimate for 2 to 3 hours soaking)

• for dried chickpeas that had not been soaked: bake for 1 hour 30 minutes, but start checking in every 10 to 15 minutes from 50 minutes on to see if more liquid or cooking time will be needed

Chickpeas are done when they’re firm-tender.

Meanwhile, prep your fixings: While the chickpeas bake, prepare any fixings that caught your eye:

To make pita chips from store-bought pitas: Separate the layers of pitas and cut into wedges. Arrange on a large baking sheet and brush lightly with 2 tablespoons olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Bake alongside chickpeas for 10 to 15 minutes, tossing occasionally to ensure that they toast evenly. Let cool.

To toast pine nuts: Spread the nuts on a baking sheet and toast them in the oven while the chickpeas bake for 5 minutes, tossing once or twice as they like to toast unevenly. Let cool.

To make a tomato-cucumber “relish” salad: Chop a handful of whatever decent-looking tomatoes you can find in March, and 1 large or a few smaller cucumbers into very small pieces. Finely chop 1/4 a small red onion. Mix vegetables and onion in a bowl and dress to taste with olive oil, fresh lemon juice, salt and pepper.

To make lemon-tahini yogurt: Whisk 6 tablespoons well-stirred tahini in the bottom of a bowl. Whisk in the juice of a whole lemon, 1 minced garlic clove and 4 tablespoons water until smooth. Whisk in 1 cup plain yogurt, about 1/4 at a time, until smooth. Season with salt. Adjust all levels to taste.

Serve and let everyone assemble: We started with a handful of pita chips on our plan, then heaped on the baked chickpeas, dolloped on the yogurt sauce, tomato-cucumber “relish” salad, sprinkled everything with parsley and pine nuts and then a couple of us also shook on some hot sauce. Dig in.