A dry pound from Goya, soaked over a night or two.
Why drain the soaking water? To eliminate gaseous effects? So what, and I think the body can get used to it over time. How much nutrition is being lost, let alone flavor? I have yet to find any science on this, so I'm keeping the water.
Do I have to boil? Can I just slow simmer for a while? What's the difference, other than probably more time for the slow way.
How much salt, and when? Salting at the end seems pointless - its not going to penetrate what's being cooked.
I'm thinking of what else I can cook this with, maybe some cabbage. Let's start simple, and work our way up. Once I have it cooked, I can always make soup out of it later.
There was also an in interesting idea to try sometime - soaking with kombu.
So I'll try bringing it just up to a boil, then backing down to simmer for half an hour, then test. And I'll start with one tablespoon of very coarse kosher salt.
Only 2.5 qt of water, barely covered, so I'll top up with tap water to the 4.0 qt level.
Scum forms quickly, and I'm not sure what it is, but I think its right and proper for it to go. I skim for the first five minutes with a slotted spoon and a bowl of water, and it seems to be mostly gone. I'll research that while I wait.
Hmm, came across some vehement urging to boil the chickpeas for 10 minutes to get rid of some toxin. That doesn't sound quite right. Ah, this applies to a different species (Lathyrus) than chickpea (Cicer), even though they are sometimes called chickpea. That's the internet for you - you get an avalanche of misinformation for free, real information requires digging.
After an hour, the chickpeas taste pretty good, but they're still a little too hard. After 1.5 hours, the interior is creamy, but there's still a little crunch on this outside; time to stop cooking.
The yield is the peas and 2 quarts of liquid; 1 qt of liquid was reduced to steam. When the peas dry a bit they'll go in containers. The broth is going right to cabbage soup.
A while later, and there is soup. I think the cabbage was too old, and I shredded it too fine, but it was OK after about 20 minutes. It needed a little something extra, like tomato paste, but all I had was some homemade ketchup. I should have put it in much sooner, it never really developed. Overall, not bad, but I can do better next time.
Labels: chickpea, kombu, soak
