Do you have any idea what these are?
If I hadn't seen the sign at the Greenmarket, I wouldn't have recognized them, at least not from just looking at them. Despite a lifetime of eating chickpeas in various forms, I'd never seen fresh ones before yesterday.
So I bought a pint, for the rather spendy sum of $5. I quizzed my husband when I got home - he didn't recognize them either, and guessed they were soybeans, which the pods slightly resemble. But these pods are smaller, and only have one or two chickpeas inside.
I set to work shelling them - if shell is what you do to chickpeas. Maybe you shuck them, husk them, peel them? (Maybe you call them garbanzos.) Shelling the pint took me a half an hour, and resulted in 3/4 of a cup of little fresh chickpeas, looking kind of like wrinkled peas.
The farmer had said to boil them for a five minutes, so I did that, and tossed them with a pinch of coarse salt and a drizzle of olive oil. And they were seriously good, toothier than a pea, less mealy than a dried cooked chickpea.
But $5 and a half hour for a small side dish for two adults? I'm unlikely to buy them again.
19 July 2011
$5 plus a half hour =
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12 comments:
With any luck, I should be walking through said greenmarket (and also by your office) on my way to and from work from my temporary digs. I am looking forward to it, but will maybe forego the chickpeas.
they look wonderful. i love garbanzos, but usually get them in a can; just bought some dried ones to experiment with. i don't see why these couldn't be sold shelled and fresh frozen, like edamame. or those green peas that i don't like. somebody is growing and harvesting these for the cans, no?
yes kathy, someone's harvesting them for the cans. but those are riper - they've turned brown and the shells get drier and papery (only a few of mine were like that). they're much easier to shell when dry, and it can probably be done mechanically.
I'll bet they would have made excellent hummus!
I thought they were grapes, albeit sickly looking ones. That'll learn me.
I ate a fresh fig for the first time a couple of weeks ago (I know that's not as exciting). I would definitely have to try the fresh chick peas once.
One of my favorite incidents from when my eldest was an animal-obsessed preschooler was the day we went to the Bronx Zoo. A peacock strutted by, followed by his whole family.
Eldest observed, "Peacock... pea hen.. pea chicks... CHICK PEAS!"
But no, I never would have recognized them in the pod.
That's what I was thinking as I read this!
I couldn't have guessed either. Last year our CSA sent us edamame still on the plant. That was a lot of work and we didn't even have to shell them!
Wow. Never seen those before...just give me my Goya.
How fascinating. Try anything once, right?
I am longing for your farmer's market right now. All the luxurious fruits and veggies are trucked to our market from the other side of the mountains, so we have to spend $3 for a pint of cherry tomatoes. Or raspberries. Sigh.
The pods look like the inner pods of fava beans (which I shelled tonight for dinner). A lot of work, but tasty in both cases.
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