chickpea & olive stew

I like to make huge batches of soups and stews, especially in the fall and winter, and freeze them in empty peanut butter jars. It’s super comforting in my lazier moments to be able to grab something out of the freezer for lunch or dinner, plus it’s a lot cheaper than getting take-out, which is my main tendency in these lazy moments. And generally healthier.

This stew is really easy to put together, very hearty and filling and vegan. It’s also very inexpensive to make, mostly coming from tins of things in the pantry. The generous olives and garlic make it especially rich and briny. I like to make it fairly spicy, but feel free to ramp up or down the chili flakes to your liking. Ladle over some fluffy (and practically instant) couscous for a real quick dinner. It’s easy to scale this recipe up or down, I like to make a huge vat for freezing but you can easily halve or double this.

chickpea and olive stew:

• 4 large tins chickpeas

• 4 tins whole tomatoes

• 4 cups vegetable stock

• 1 cup mixed olives

• 1 whole bulb garlic, peeled and smashed

• 1 shallot, very finely sliced

• 1-2 tsp crushed chili flakes

• 2 tbs olive oil

• Juice from 1 lemon

• ½ cup parsley chopped

Saute garlic, chili flakes and shallot in oil until fragrant and beginning to colour. Add tomatoes cook for a few more minute. Add stock and about half the olives. Reduce heat to low and cook for about an hour, or until the stew is thick and tomatoes are broken down. Add lemon juice and remaining olives and cook for about 5 more minutes. Serve with couscous and lots of parsley sprinkled on top.

Note: to cook couscous, combine equal volumes dry couscous and boiling water in a pot. Cover with a lid and steam about 10 minutes. If you have stock, use that instead of water. Otherwise throw a bouillon cube in there. I like to add crushed chili flakes, dried minced garlic and parsley flakes. A glug of olive oil or a pat of butter wouldn’t go amiss here.  

three peas dinner

I love these crispy chickpeas, and I quite often just eat them on their own. They are satisfyingly crunchy, like chickpea popcorn. When I am feeling just slightly less lazy, I turn them into a proper supper: super fresh with lots of mint and lemon, rich and satisfying from goat cheese and bacon, and that nice smug-inducing healthiness from green pea shoots. This dinner has it all and it comes together fast too.

three peas dinner:

adapted from Bon Appetit

• 6 rashers bacon

• 1 can chickpeas

• 2 tbs grapeseed oil

• 1 cup pea shoots

• ½ tsp garlic powder

• ½ tsp flaky salt

• pinch cumin & paprika

• 2 cups peas, fresh if possible but frozen is great too

• ½ cup mint leaves roughly torn

• olive oil and lemon juice for drizzling

Bake the bacon on a cookie sheet at 375 until crispy. Crumble and set aside.

Drain chickpeas and let dry as much as you can. Heat grapeseed oil in a large frying pan over medium high heat. Stirring frequently, fry chickpeas until they are crispy and golden brown, about 8-10 minutes. Toss chickpeas with salt, garlic, cumin and paprika.

While chickpeas fry, bring water to boil in a small pan. Blanch peas briefly in boiling water until just tender. Drain and set aside.

Smear a generous dollop of goat cheese cream onto each plate and top with pea shoots, chickpeas, peas, mint and bacon crumbles. Squeeze lemon and a few drops of olive oil over top of everything.

preserved lemon and goat cheese cream:

Adapted from A new way to dinner

• ⅓ cup creme fraiche

• four ounces goat cheese

• 2 tbs reserved lemon, roughly chopped

• large pinch chili flakes

• pepper

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and blitz until smooth.

chickpea fries with spicy aioli

I really like french fries. I like french fries way too much, I want to eat them all the time. I like them with stuff on them, I like them unadorned. I want to order them any time I see them on a menu, I have to hold myself back occasionally and order something an adult might eat. I also wanted to make them at home, and I have tried and failed. I have tried lots of different ways with very little success. Complicated methods that involve triple cooking, parboiling and freezing several times. I have tried frying quickly in super hot oil and more slowly in merely quite hot oil. I have tried the strangely convincing cold oil method that Cook's Illustrated lulled me into believing in, and then dashed all my hopes. I have still never made amazing, crispy fries at home.

Enter chickpea fries, or panisse as they are called in France, which are very easy to make at home and fill the french fries niche perfectly: salty, crispy and highly dippable. Traditionally these would be deep fried in olive oil, but deep frying is such a pain, and stinks up your house. I roasted these in a hot oven with a little slick of oil and they were beautifully crisp with puffy, pillowy soft insides. You can call them panisse if you are serving them at a dinner party and fries if you are serving them to a toddler. Or me.

These are slightly healthier (or a lot healthier, depending on how you assess the healthiness of potatoes and chickpeas) than potato fries, so eating a whole bunch of them doesn't give me the guilt hangover of eating a load of french fries. I mean, they are basically hummus. You can't feel too bad about eating hummus can you? No, you can't.

Chickpea flour might be tricky to find, but I have had good luck in most big grocery stores, or in Indian or Mediteranian groceries.

chickpea fries

Adapted from the New York Times

• 2 cups chickpea flour
• 1 cup water
• 1 tsp each, garlic powder, paprika, salt and pepper
• finely chopped parsley

Bring water to a boil in a medium sized saucepan. Slowly add in chickpea flour, stirring vigorously to avoid lumps. Cook over medium heat until very thick, like the texture of wet cement.

Pour batter into a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and chill for at least an hour, or overnight if you wish.

Pre-heat oven to 450°F. Cut the set batter into batons, squares or whatever shape you like. Batons are good for dipping though. Roast in hot oven in a little oil, turning fries after about 10 minutes, or when the bottoms are deep brown, and cook about 10 more minutes. Serve sprinkled with salt, pepper and parsley and dip in spicy aioli.

spicy aioli

• 1/2 cup mayonnaise (use vegan mayonnaise to make the whole recipe vegan) 
• 3 tbs lime juice
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 clove finely minced garlic
• 1 tsp each salt and pepper

Mix all ingredients well in a small bowl.

chickpea burgers with red pepper-feta spread and spicy-preserved-lemon-mayo

Summer is for burgers, and burgers are for barbecues and barbecues are for people who have a yard or a balcony or an outdoor space of some kind. I do not, in my current apartment, have any sort of outdoor space and so no barbecue and so not very many burgers. I do make them on the stove top occasionally, but it's not the same as barbecuing, it just doesn't seem quite right. Sometimes I think crazy thoughts like, "Maybe if I open ALL the windows, it would be fine to use a little barbecue inside..." and that kind of thinking is how bad decisions get made. I really need to move to somewhere with a yard so I can barbecue without risking gassing myself. 

So I made these chickpea burgers in the oven, and then I reheated them in a grill pan to make them look barbecued so I can pretend I am living a life that involves real barbecuing. The grilling part is optional, you can use them straight out of the oven if you want to. Extras freeze really well and you can thaw them and reheat them in the oven or in a grill pan, or on the barbecue if you are blessed with a yard. 

Veggie burgers can be great, they can also be really boring and sad and I feel like the toppings often make or break the veggie burger. They tend to be on the bland side and are therefore excellent vehicles for tasty spreads and crispy greens. I made two spreads for these burgers; a roasted red pepper feta spread (which I make quite a bit to eat on slices of cucumbers and carrots) and mayo with preserved lemons and chilies. The mild nuttiness of chickpeas is an excellent canvass for these bold flavours. 

chickpea burgers:

• one tin chickpeas
• 1/4-1/2 cup chickpea flour, and a little extra for dredging 
• one egg
• one shallot or small yellow onion
• one clove garlic
• 1 teaspoon mustard powder
• salt and pepper

Blend everything together in a food processor, adjusting the chickpea flour until a very thick paste is formed. Scoop out 1/4 cups of the mixture and coat them in extra chickpea flour. An ice cream scoop with a release mechanism works great for the scooping because the mixture is very sticky. Place the scoops onto a parchment lined cookie sheet and flatten into 4 inch rounds. Bake patties at 350 for 10 minutes, until they are browned on the bottom, flip over and bake for 5-10 more minutes, until set and brown on both sides. If you want to, grill them on a barbecue or grill pan until nice grill marks appear. 

red pepper feta spread:

• 1/2 cup feta, crumbled
• 1/4 cup cream cheese
• 3-4 pieces of jarred roasted red pepper
• 1 clove garlic
• lots of fresh ground pepper

Blend everything together in a food processor until it forms a paste. 

spicy preserved lemon mayo:

•  1/4 a preserved lemon and a small fresh red chili, roughly chopped together
• 1 large or extra large egg (medium eggs or smaller will need two)
• 1 cup light, neutral oil, almond works well

Immersion blender method: in a pint size mason jar with a wide mouth opening (or similarly shaped container) that fits the immersion blender, place an egg and a cup of oil. Place the immersion blender all the way into the jar and blend, holding the blender still until the mayo becomes very thick. Add the preserved lemon and blend until incorporated. 

Food processor method: Put the egg in the food processor and, with the machine running, add oil in a slow stream. Once emulsified, add preserved lemon and chile and blend until incorporated. 

assembly: 

I put spinach, pea shoots and avocado on these burgers, and lots of feta pepper spread and lemon mayo. 

Photo credit: Tyrel Hiebert