A Not So New Ingredient

Its in the packaged flour blend I've been using to bake gluten-free, yet had no idea that independently there was so much I could do with this ingredient. Through one little reference to a recipe forwarded to me by father-in-law, I am now aware of Garbanzo Bean Flour.

While I knew Falafal, a middle eastern food, was made from ground chickpeas, apparently you can use chickpea flour to make them too. This I tried using a recipe from Bob's Red Mill, before even attempting the very simple recipe my father-in-law told me about. He told me of a food called Farinata, a street food found in the Genoese region of Italy. After my own search of the internet, I discovered a parallel food from Nice, France called a Socca. Both are simple pancakes. They have a base of chickpea flour, salt, and water, with additional lemon juice, herbs and olive oil. One requires as little as 30 minutes to set before frying, and the other a minimum of 2 hours (some recipes say at least 4 hours), to set, before baking. Both had interesting, savory flavors that distinguished themselves from the raw flavor of the flour. Apparently time makes a difference in altering the flavor of the flour, which is why the Falafal, Farinata, and Socca, each require a period of time for the batter to set.

There are more recipes out there to try using the garbanzo bean flour. Besides the regions already mentioned, I'm waiting to test a few recipes originating from India. One of the interesting parts of our unique diet is finding different food uses internationally. Not everyone has a diet concentrated on dairy or wheat- thankfully!