JOANNA'S FOOD: family cooking, from scratch, every day


Saturday, November 24, 2007

Chickpea mash

Last night, I was going to have a quiet night in on my own ... useful, as we are having 60 people to lunch tomorrow, and, although I'm not cooking, there's a lot to be done. At about 6 o'clock Lucius phoned to say he'd be home for dinner after all. I didn't feel like cooking, and I hadn't made any plans. So ... something quick and easy.

Lucius really doesn't count it as a meal unless there are hot potatoes. I just didn't feel like scrubbing off the Hampshire dirt, peeling, cutting, etc etc. Quick and easy. So I opened a tin of chickpeas. He doesn't like chickpeas at the best of times ... It's mash. His face lit up. I felt a little mean. What sort of mash? he said suspiciously. Oh. He took a little ... and left a lot of it. But he ate up all the chicken nosh that went with it, and even one or two slices of roasted squash.

Chickpea mash

One can of chickpeas
One small onion
Olive oil
perhaps a little cumin or chilli to flavour it. Or not

Chop the onion and sweat it in a little oil. If you are using cumin, add it now. Drain and rinse the chickpeas, then heat them through in fresh water. When the onions are soft, mix them with the drained chickpeas. Mash - either by hand, or with an electric "wand", or whizz them in a food processor. They're just as good lumpy as smooth.

Delicious - ignore my husband!

4 comments:

MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

That's funny! I'd enjoy them both.

Joanna said...

I know, me too ... it's really good. I've made it in the past with a little drizzle of crisply fried onion, I think it's probably from Nigel Slater, whatever, it's utter heaven :)

Cottage Smallholder said...

We eat chickpea mash a lot with lamb chops. We use the Nigel Slater recipe and simmer them with garlic.

Danny has the same potato need as Lucius. So we have potatoes and chickpea mash!

Anonymous said...

I have this problem too - I love chickpeas but Nik really isn't keen on them. Mind you, he might go for them more in mashed form as it is partly the texture he doesn't like.

I'd love these myself!