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Health Food: Spicy roasted chickpeas

Jill Dupleix
Jill Dupleix

Next-level crunch: Roasted chickpeas, flavoured with spices, make a deliciously moreish snack.
Next-level crunch: Roasted chickpeas, flavoured with spices, make a deliciously moreish snack.Edwina Pickles

What are they?

They're the crisp and crunchy new bar snack of choice, leaving olives and nuts in the shade. Inspired by the Indian (chana) and Turkish (leblebi) street snack, the chickpeas are either pan-fried, deep-fried or oven-roasted, and flavoured with Moroccan, Indian or Italian spices.

Where are they?

Chef Mat Lindsay started cooking spicy, fried chickpeas when cheffing at Vini in Surry Hills. Now they're the first thing to hit the table at his wood-fired Chippendale eatery Ester. "I just like the idea of someone sitting down and getting a little bowl of something crunchy and spicy," he says. "We deep-fry the cooked chickpeas, then toss them with fennel, deep-fried rosemary, sage and sea salt."

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Around the corner at LP's Quality Meats, the wilted kale comes with deep-fried chickpeas that blogger Lee Tran Lam of the Unbearable Lightness of Being Hungry says have "a next-level crunch".

The chickpeas are fried to order at Cumulus Up in Melbourne, tossed with either smoked and sweet paprika, cayenne, sugar and salt, or coriander, fennel seed, salt and white pepper. "They're like peanuts at a bar: very moreish," says chef Casey McDonald.

In Kew, Joshua Clarke has been fixated on chickpeas since opening Lil Blue Boy over two years ago. "I'm obsessed with them," he says. "My signature chickpeas are deep-fried and seasoned with sea salt and sumac (a tart, fruit Middle Eastern spice). Every single person who has them comments on them."

Why do I care?

Because they're crunchy, salty and spicy outside, and a bit like mashed potato inside.

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Can I do them at home?

Cook your own chickpeas (soak overnight in cold water, drain and simmer for an hour or until tender) or open a can, drain and rinse.

Oven-roasted spicy chickpeas

200g cooked or canned chickpeas

1 tbsp chopped rosemary

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1 tsp smoked paprika

1 tsp ground cumin or coriander

1 tsp fennel seeds

1 tsp sea salt

1 tsp sugar

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1/2 tsp black pepper

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp lemon zest

1. Heat the oven to 180C. Dry the chickpeas by rolling in a clean cloth.

2. Whiz the rosemary, paprika, cumin, fennel seeds, sea salt, sugar and pepper and in a mini food processor or coffee grinder to a powder.

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3. Toss the chickpeas in olive oil until coated, then add all but one teaspoon of the spice mix and toss well. Bake for 30 minutes, shaking occasionally. Take out and set aside to cool for 20 minutes, then return to the oven for a further 15 minutes (sounds weird, but it's the key to their crispness).

4. Toss the chickpeas in the remaining spice mix with the lemon zest and a little extra rosemary.

Serves 4 as a snack

Sourcing

VIC

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Cumulus Up, 45 Flinders Lane 03 96501445

Lil Boy Blue, 309 High Street, Kew 03 9853 5003

NSW

Ester, 46-52 Meagher Street, Chippendale 02 8068 8279

LP's Quality Meats, 1/16 Chippen Street, Chippendale 02 8399 0929 www.lpsqualitymeats.com

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Jill DupleixJill Dupleix is a Good Food contributor and reviewer who writes the Know-How column.

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