Introduction to Chickpeas (Garbanzos)

Written by Leslie O'Neil

February is still a rough time of year for local produce. Our high desert farmers have finalized their crop plans and finished purchasing seed for the coming spring season. Some may be starting to plant in their greenhouses but we won’t see much from them until March or April. Even our Willamette Valley partners have more restricted availability this time of year and we’re reaching the end of the supply of local storage crops. 

Introducing small quantities of locally and regionally grown pantry staples like lentils and chickpeas that are grown following organic farming methods, cleaned, dried, and stored within 200 miles of our community really helps us balance our weekly harvest boxes. With one more affordable option in the box, we can offer higher value items like mushrooms or locally grown microgreens all while ensuring greater variety and nutritionally well-rounded and tasty options every week. This also keeps your dollars in our community which benefits us all and continues to keep our food transportation footprint low.

So, following our standard 3-week rotation for crop categories, we bring you our second pantry staple: Chickpeas! Also commonly known as garbanzo beans although they’re not a bean at all just in the same plant family (Fabaceae). 

These lovely little organic peas are grown, cleaned, and dried just outside Eugene by our friends and partners at Camas Country Mill.

{Image from Camas Country Mill - Raw, dried chickpeas (garbanzo). Featured image from Live Eat Learn}

General Info:

These little peas are the castellano variety of chickpeas. They’re semi-lumpy, round, yellowish in color, medium-sized chickpea with a nutty taste and a rough skin that pops off after soaking. 

Chickpeas (Cicer arietinum), have been cultivated for nearly 10,000 years and are popular in Greece, North Africa, Israel, the Middle East, India, Pakistan, Spain, Italy, Mexico and beyond! 

{Image of the Cicer arietinum plant from the Crop Science Society of America}

Nutrition:

Rich in vitamins and minerals, chickpeas are nutritionally dense and great for your heart health. Which is perfect now that it’s officially Heart Healthy Month!

Chickpeas are high in protein (including 8 of the 9 essential amino acids), fiber, folate (vitamin B9), vitamin B6, manganese, iron, zinc, phosphorous, and contain lower but still significant amounts of magnesium, thiamine, selenium, and phosphorous. 

The high protein and fiber content of chickpeas can help you feel full longer as the protein-fiber combo naturally digests slowly. The fiber is mostly water soluble, which is great for the digestive tract as it can help boost healthy (good) gut bacteria. 

Chickpeas are also low on the glycemic index, which will help regulate blood sugar. 

They do have a higher fat content than other beans or peas but this helps make them smooth and creamy when made into dips and pastes like hummus or when pureed into soups.

Cooking:

If you’ve never cooked with dried chickpeas before, they do require a bit of passive preparation (soaking) and have a longer cooking time than other dried beans and peas and much longer cooking time than our last pantry staple, lentils. We’ll be including some staff recipes later this week and through next week but to get you started in prepping your little chickpeas check out these excellent instructions from Feel Good Foodie on how to prep and cook your dried chickpeas either on the stove or using a pressure cooker (or Instapot).

{Image of dried lentils prepped for soaking from Feel Good Foodie}

Besides classic hummus (or hummous) which has endless variations, or falafel, you’ll also find loads of recipes for chickpea curries, dal, dumplings and flatbread made from chickpea flour, and you can add them to chili, soups, stews, savory pies, turn them into an alternative to traditional soy-based tofu, and are delicious tossed with spices and toasted in the oven for a crunchy snack.

Some of my personal favorite dishes are actually made from chickpea flour rather than whole chickpeas. So, while I haven’t started the process yet myself, I did a little research on how to turn dried chickpeas into flour at home. One of the best sources I found was from Alpha Foodie. I’m pretty excited to try it out and I promise I’ll report back with how things went. Making chickpea flour yourself is a great cost-saving step and the end product is shelf-stable for easy storage.

{Image of chickpeas and chickpea flour from Alpha Foodie}

 

 

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Sources:
https://www.cooksinfo.com/chickpeas
https://woodlandfoods.com/products/organic-chickpeas/c-23/p-15794
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/chickpeas-nutrition-benefits
USDA Food Data Central - https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/173757/nutrients
Science Direct - https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/cicer-arietinum
Native Plant Trust - https://gobotany.nativeplanttrust.org/species/cicer/arietinum/
Harvard School of Public Health- https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/food-features/chickpeas-garbanzo-beans/