Simply Wonderful Chickpeas

It is not very often you get lucky by sheer chance. This week is begining to get a little hectic, I was planning to make sweets to take over to Albany, this weekend. We are going up to be with my husband's family and celebrate Diwali as well as meet up with the new baby in the family. This is becoming a little crazier, since they are doing Diwali at Aadi's school, a lovely idea except I am the mommy who is supposed to bring traditional treats.

I have been making a lot of khoya (evaporated solid milk) which is the base for almonst everything. In the midst of this, I had a pressure cooker on the stove cooking chickpeas. Well, this time round the pressure cooked for at least 15 minutes longer that usual - surprise, the resulting soft, melt in your mouth creamy chickpeas were too die for. I have cooked other beans such as kidney beans to such softness, but chickpeas retain a nice earthy bite even when cooked to extra softness.

It has been a while before I have been so thrilled with the results of a recipe that I cooked up in three basic steps and certainly hope that I can replicate again.

Simply Wonderful Chickpeas

Cook Time: 1 hour (mostly pressure-cooking the chickpeas)

Serves: 4

Ingredients

3/4 cup white chickpeas

4 cups of water

1.5 teaspoons of salt

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger

2 tomatoes, chopped

1 tablespoon oil

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds

1 -2 whole red chillies crushed

Lots of fresh lemon or lime juice

1/3 cup of chopped cilantro

Method of Preparation

1. Cook the chickpeas in a pressure cooker for a good 45 minutes, with the water, salt and turmeric.

2. Cool the chickpeas, remove the lid add the ginger, garlic and tomatoes and cook till all the water has evaporated (this really should not take long).

3. Heat the oil add the cumin and mustard and wait till the mustard pops add in the whole chilies and cook for 20 seconds. Pour this over the chickpeas.

4. Add in the lemon juice and stir in the chopped cilantro.