Ingredient

Chickpeas

Tinned chickpeas are perfectly good and dried chickpeas are noticeably better, and the gap is larger than for almost any other tinned pulse. Whether it is worth the overnight soak depends entirely on what you are making.

Dried versus tinned

A tinned chickpea is cooked to a standard that has to survive a can and a shelf, which means firm, slightly grainy and mildly flavoured. A dried chickpea cooked at home can be taken to the point of collapse — soft, creamy, with skins that slip off — and it tastes of chickpea in a way the tinned one does not.

For a stew, a curry or a traybake, where the chickpea is one ingredient among many and keeps its shape, tinned is entirely reasonable. For hummus, where texture is the whole dish, dried chickpeas cooked until genuinely soft are the difference between smooth and slightly gritty, and no amount of blending compensates.

Cooking dried chickpeas

1. Soak overnight in plenty of cold water with a pinch of salt and, if you like, a half teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda per 500g. They will roughly double.
2. Drain, rinse, and cover with fresh water by a good few centimetres.
3. Add a pinch more bicarbonate of soda. It raises the pH, which breaks down the pectin in the cell walls and helps the skins soften — this is the traditional Middle Eastern method and it works.
4. Bring to the boil, skim the foam, then simmer gently. Depending on their age they take anywhere from forty-five minutes to two hours.
5. Cook them further than you think for hummus. They should crush to nothing between your fingers.
6. Keep the cooking liquid. It is excellent in soup, and it is what makes hummus loose and smooth without adding water.

When they refuse to soften

• They are old. Chickpeas that have sat in a cupboard for years may never soften properly. This is the commonest cause and there is no fix.
• Hard water. Calcium and magnesium reinforce the cell walls. Bicarbonate of soda counteracts it.
• Acid in the pot. Tomato, lemon or vinegar dramatically slow softening. Cook first, acidify after.
• Not long enough. Chickpeas can go from stubborn to collapsing in the last twenty minutes. Keep going before concluding they are broken.

Making hummus properly smooth

• Overcook the chickpeas — this matters more than anything else.
• Remove the skins if you want it silky. Rubbing them in a tea towel or squeezing each one takes ten minutes and makes an obvious difference. Bicarbonate in the cooking water loosens them so most float free.
• Blend the tahini and lemon juice together first, before the chickpeas go in. They emulsify into a pale, thick paste, and building the hummus on that base gives a much lighter result.
• Add iced water while blending. It sounds wrong and it is what makes hummus fluffy rather than dense.
• Blend it much longer than feels necessary. Several minutes, not thirty seconds.
• Season hard. Salt, lemon and garlic all need to be more assertive than you would guess.

Aquafaba

The liquid in a tin of chickpeas — aquafaba — contains dissolved protein and starch, and it behaves remarkably like egg white. Whisked, it forms a stable foam that can be used for meringue, mousse and as an emulsifier in vegan mayonnaise.

It works best from a tin of unsalted chickpeas, or reduced slightly if it is thin. Roughly three tablespoons stands in for one egg white. It whips more slowly than egg white and benefits from a pinch of cream of tartar. It is one of the more genuinely useful discoveries of the last decade of home cooking and it costs nothing, since you were pouring it away.

Common questions