orange violet: Roasted Chickpeas

A few weeks ago I was in Portland for a friend’s bachelorette party. Besides the astonishing feeling that this would be me soon enough, we had a wonderful time dancing and drinking champagne. But a funny thing happened on the way to the party. We enjoyed and amazing dinner at Davis Street Tavern which included spicy fried chickpeas.

Now, I’m a fan of the chickpea, or garbanzo bean if you want to get all fancy with it (Speaking of which didn’t it blow your mind a little bit when you realized they were the same thing?). These little guys are great in salad and who doesn’t love some hummus. But these spicy friend chickpeas were to die for. And I suddenly thought, I bet I could make these.

Since the flavor was in my brain I quickly attempted a Food Network recipe. I was so excited but you know what I got? Mushy chickpeas. The flavor was good but I felt like the oven need to be hotter and the little guys needed to be on for longer.

So I did what any self-respecting cook would do, I took to Facebook. My future mother-in-law came to the rescue with these simple instructions: Be sure to rinse canned beans and make sure they are DRY. Then mix with a little evoo (2T per 1. 15oz can) add 6-10 garlic cloves minced, and any seasoning chili power s&p cumin, red pepper whatever you want. Bake at 450 for 35-45 min. They also need to be single layer. Stir occasionally. Good luck.

The chickpeas were great. They had a nice crunch to them, mimicking the fried ones I’d had before. The problem came with the fresh garlic. Because it was in there for so long it just got burnt to a crisp and didn’t really stick to the chickpeas (maybe it wasn’t minced fine enough).

So I bought more chickpeas and gave the same basic recipe a whirl with granulated garlic a good bit more salt and I added cumin, paprika and red pepper flakes to bump up the spice. I put t hem in for 45 minutes shaking them up every 15.