Day Six of Seven Days of Alton Brown: Time for a Healthy Snack, Good Eats Style! Salt and Vinegar Roasted Chickpeas

Hello again and thanks for checking out Cast Iron Therapy, where I’ve been trying out a number of Alton Brown’s applications from his latest book, Good Eats 3. So far we’ve tried such delicious things as miso soup, hoecakes, and the extremely popular baked banana pudding.

We’re going to take a brief step away from the sumptuousness of the last post, and making a rather healthy snack, with a very simple process if requiring a long amount of soaking time: Salt and Vinegar Roasted chickpeas, or garbanzos if you prefer.

As always, this application has been adapted from Good Eats 3.

The first step requires one pound of dried chickpeas (aka garbanzos.)

Pour them into a bowl.

And cover with enough water to cover by two inches and let soak overnight.

Two inches is right! This was quite the growth in volume.

A closer shot to see just how much these things have plumped up, sorry about the glare.

Drain the chickpeas while assembling the other stuff.

Oh, important edit! (thanks reddit) now is a great time to preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

To season the snack, we shall be calling upon kosher salt, red wine vinegar, dijon mustard and olive oil. Honey dijon isn’t quite right, but I wasn’t going to go buy another condiment to take up precious space in the kitchen.

We will also need a small, sturdy container with a lid.

To this we will combine one teaspoon of salt.

A quarter cup of red wine vinegar.

And one teaspoon of mustard.

Shake vigorously!

Add one tablespoon of olive oil.

And shake vigorously again.

Pour this mixture into the chickpeas and mix well to coat.

Spread out onto a baking sheet. Foil isn’t really necessary, but I try to keep things tidy. You’ll need the mixing bowl again so don’t clean it out.

Roast for one hour, tossing every fifteen minutes until they look a bit like this. Be brave and test a few, or maybe with a knife to ensure adequate crunchiness. If they aren’t adequately crisp another five minutes will help.

Pour the chickpeas back into the mixing bowl and add another teaspoon of red wine vinegar.

And a half teaspoon of kosher salt, and then give it a good mixing to incorporate the seasoning.

Then return them to the baking sheet and spread them out to cool. Then enjoy as a healthier alternative to potato chips and corn nuts.

Verdict? Not bad at all! These protein filled snacks definitely satisfy in the fills you up sort of way, but I think that I’d like to soak them in salt water next time to ensure more even and penetrating seasoning.

Still, this was a fun project, and pretty Good Eats!