What is chickpea flour used for?

Question

I bought a bag of chickpea flour once thinking (erroneously) that I could use it to make hummus. I've since bought dried chickpeas and made hummus the "right" way... but now I have no idea what to do with my unopened bag of chickpea flour. What is it generally used for?

Now, I know it can be used as a substitute for eggs (in vegan baking) and flour (for gluten-free cooking), but I'd rather not use it as a substitute for something better if I don't have to, so I'm looking for recipes where chickpea flour is the preferred ingredient.

Answer 1

Chickpea flour (gram flour, besan) is very useful in Indian cookery.

The most common use in the West is probably for making bhajis and pakora. The most popular of which are Onion Bhajis, very popular in the UK. They are essentially an spiced onion fritter, shaped in either discs or balls. Any vegetables can be used to make pakora (which is essentially the same thing) or bhajis, but spinach (sag pakora), aubergine (us eggplant, brinjal bhaji), potato (aloo pakora) or cauliflower (gobi pakora) are the most common, sometimes in combination.

Gram flour is also used for making poppadoms (also papad, papadum, a crisp fried pancake, served as an accompaniment to meals with chutney.

One of the more commonly seen uses is in chevda (sometimes chivda), or as we call it in the UK usually Bombay Mix (I believe it is called Punjabi Mix in the US). A mixture of dried savoury snacks, coated in spice. One of the primary ingredients is sev, a dried noodle made from gram flour. Mixtures predominantly composed of sev are called sev mamra.

There are also a number of Indian sweets made with besan.

Besan Barfi (barfi is something akin to fudge, made with condensed milk):

Besan Ladoo (little sweet balls):

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NB. You can use it as an egg substitute in vegan cookery, but soya flour works better for the same purpose and, in my opinion, has less associated flavour.

Answer 2

there's an italian hors d'oeuvre/bread-like side dish called "farinata" that is basically made with just chickpea flour, salt, olive oil, and not much else that is very delicious. it's kind of like polenta, but not exactly the same. very very easy to make. check out google!

Answer 3

In addition to what Orbling said, chickpea flour (called besan in Hindi), can also be used for making cheela or puda, which are like the Western pancake.

Also in addition to the ones Orbling mentioned, Mysore pak is another sweet that can be made with besan.

Answer 4

Chickpea - Garbanzo flour

I use it in many ways. Normally I start with the whole pea and run it through my Vita-mix blender, quite often along with lentils, great white northern beans. Depending on my end use I may run the batch through a sieve and rerunning coarse through the blender again.

1. The floured bean mix I keep some ready on the shelf for soup & sauce thickener _ and flavor. It is quick to cook.
2. When doing vegetarian meat recipes, I normally do a flouring of garbanzo, red winter wheat, etc. using about 1/2 this mix to approximately 1/2 vital. In this case I shoot for about 75-80% fine to the coarse thus introducing some texture into the completed recipe. I normally use the foil and steaming method over the boiling stock.
3. Hummus: sprout the garbanzo s { 2 -3 days} then dry the garbanzo at a low temperature. The flour in the blender. And of course your choices of the other hummus additives. Be inventive. Note normally I skip the drying phase and just blend the sprouted garbanzos into a paste - and then refrigerate.

Answer 5

You can read some special dishes which ask for chickpea flour on Wikipedia.

Here you see some dishes which are more tastier because of the chickpea flour.

Answer 6

I use it to make Indian-style onion fritters. I think it's pretty commonly used in South Asian cooking, especially when things are fried.

Answer 7

Nobody has mentioned socca? It's a delicious pancake from Nice, France. I first had it in Brooklyn at Pates Et Traditions where they serve it very crispy and buttery. Here is a recipe.

Answer 8

How about tortillitas, a seafood pancake from Spain?

Answer 9

I sometimes use it to thicken stews or gravies. It contributes an excellent flavor.

Answer 10

I found out once, when we were experimenting with some recipes for a vegan/gluten-intolerant guest coming into the restaurant, that profiteroles may be made with 100% chickpea flour and will come out more or less identical to normal profiteroles, only slightly less puffy. I would suggest only using them for savoury applications; I have not been able to figure out a sweet accompaniment that really worked (yet).

Answer 11

You can use it to make felafel also. http://www.neetascleanrecipes.com/2010/08/baked-falafel-green-wraps.html

Answer 12

There are lot's of Persian recipes that use Chickpea flour too.
Including شیرینی نخودچی, کتلت, کوفته
I need to find out the English names, and I'll post some photos right out of our kitchen (hopefully soon).