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What to do with those extra chickpeas (garbanzo beans)?

For a healthy crunchy snack try your hand at Leblebi!



I did a search and don’t see any posts on chickpeas or garbanzo beans; no leblebi either. Crispy smoke roasted chickpeas make for a healthy nutritious snack, and smoking them in your CS adds to the tasty snack factor. It is hard to find a more economical snack.

Here is the basic recipe for my:

Spicy Smoked Leblebi

Cooked Chickpeas
Olive Oil – 1 TBSP per pound of chickpeas
CS Spicy Chicken Rub & Rib Rub – ± 2 TSP per pound of chickpeas

Begin with fully cooked chickpeas (I used canned). Drain chickpeas in a colander and rinse well with cold water. Sets beans aside to drain for 5-10 minutes, or longer to allow drying; put on a dry kitchen towel or paper towels to dry. This is a good time to remove any stray hulls or broken bits of beans. (In using different brands of beans while experimenting with this process I found that the cheaper store brands have many more husks and some seemed overcooked.) You will lose approximately 1/3 of the canned weight after this rinsing and draining process. (For instance; once I started with 44.5 ounces of canned weight and after cleaning the weight was reduced to 26.85 ounces; the final cooked dried weight on this batch was 9.8 ounces.)

Now that the beans are well drained and dried, toss with the olive oil to evenly coat. Sprinkle the spice rub over the bean and toss to evenly distribute. I suggest adding the spices incrementally and taste testing to your preference. (For one batch I used only the CS Chicken Rub and thought the results were a bit too salty.) Remember the flavors will concentrate during to cook as the chickpeas do lose a lot of water and therefore shrink significantly. Arrange in single layer on a cross wire rack; this a good use for your seafood grill if you have one. This is when I use Frogmats placed on the standard CS rack.

Set your smoker to 300˚ using your wood of choice (today I used a small chunk of pecan); don’t use too much wood as these do seem to take on smoke fairly readily. Start with a cold smoker (no need to preheat); today that was a starting temp of 74˚. I set the timer for 2 hours. After one hour, open the door to release moisture and again each half hour for the remaining hour. After the two hour cook I allowed by AmQ to reset to 140˚ for an additional hour, and checked on them each half hour. Opening the door this many times does extend the cook time but also releases moisture. This is a bit of a tricky product to smoke ‘cause to short a cook and they have a bit of a grainy texture, but too long a cook and they can become quite hard. There will be significant reduction in weight since chickpeas do hold a good bit of water. Remember you need enough time to allow the bean to dry out but don’t want to burn these bad boys.

Overall I’m happy with the results and will continue to refine this process.

Canned beans that have been rinsed and drained:


Beans coated with oil and spices:


Finished product:


Finished product:
Last edited {1}
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quote:
Originally posted by Wheelz:
What would you compare the finished product texure/hardness to? My first thought was "corn nuts" but that might be a bit too hard.


Corn nuts is probably close; if they get too dry they become harder than corn nuts. Taste test toward the end and remove when the crunch level is to your liking.

db
Didn't think I would ever smoke health food(NUTS) in my smoker, when I was at Cabelas buying this cs020. Dang it, thats just what I'm doing.

Well TN Q, I got a few problems(LOL),NO Frog mats, seafood shelves.Heck when I went to the store, NO choice in brands or even size.

But I'll do the best I can then maybe you could give suggestions, if needed!!!

Thanks for the adventure.
LOL...my nuts didn't turn out that nice(pretty). TN Q, you wasn't holding out some secret ingr. was you?

Well this was the newbie version. After making my pick of 2 cans of La Preferida 15oz Chick Peas(thats the only one they had). I brought home and washed, dried.

Now DP, this is my first question. Should I have taken off all clear husks? Not me!

Olive oil, CS chicken and rib rub, then on to a alum. baking pan with knife slices in bottom. Well I feel I can now say frog mats would have been a better choice.This may have made them dry a little uneven, oh well!

I made sure I stirred ever time I opened door.I did the times TN Q instructed, but at the end opened every 15 min after time expired.

Because of the pan mine didn't finish as even as one would want, but it did give me experience on flavor, texture of the finished product in different stages.

Soft ones had more salt and smoke flavor, I liked the crispy but not hard ones.I can't say I had any to hard. They didn't have as much of a smoke flavor.

I used 1 oz of hickory wood, next time I will try oak.

DP, have you tried greek seasoning on any or do you think to much salt flavor? How about other seasonings?

Pags you gotta try these, I've never ate anything like them before and will try again.
First time I tried these I used only the CS Spicy Chicken and they turned out too salty. That's when I tried the mix with the rib rub as it has less salt and the mix worked for me; haven't tried any other spices. Do you have any grided cooking racks that might work? The air flow helps with the drying time most likely but the pan should work as well but may take a little more stirring around; also you may go longer between sampling depending on texture when you check.

I did try to remove most of the husk. There is a difference in brands as those marked as premium had much less of the husks.

db
yep,

Them two cans of beans had skin on every one, I picked for a while and stopped. I think those picked out dryed a lot nicer and even. I thought I may have made a mistake there.

I'm with you on the salt issue. A person would want to be careful on too much salt.

I just have to order some Frog mats, been wanting some.
Pags, only place where I have found them is at frogmats.com. They do have the 'get one free with purchase' from time to time; just have to watch. It's not a bad deal at the regular price as they are so multi-function. They are easy to trim to fit as as custom size for CS is not offered; I cut one in half for smaller stuff. The silicon is super easy to clean in soapy dish water as it is really non-stick.

db
Need help again!

I'm trying to find the beans at some other middle size stores.When I found the 1st time was by Mexican area???Yep, thats what I thought.

I know I must be over looking, but afraid to ask some high school kid(LOL)

I don't want to go back and get the others...just to much work getting bean out of skin...too lazy!
I thought it a bit strange that the Goya brand was in the Hispanic section at Wally World and the Bush's brand and store brand were in the canned beans section. The Kroger store has the canned beans on the same isle as Hispanic foods but I think they repeat the Goya brand.

To an extent the skins are just a necessary nuisance. I should have noted the brand name of the 'cleaner' ones at the time. The premium price on the Goya isn't worth it as they don't seem to have any fewer skins. I've found rinsing under running water does dislodge most of the skins so they are not to hard to remove.
Thanks DB,

I was able to locate them with your advice. The kinds you mentioned and best choice brand.

I guess the looking in veg. was the wrong place.They were with the beans. Duh! I guess the chickpeas are beans.

Found some that was also dried out in a bag like navy beans.Well now, I couldn't tell if those had the skins on and my wife was a little impatient about my chickpea shopping, but I did pickup another can to try.

Thanks again!

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