I wanted to make a recipe with chickpeas, amazing how many things can be made from these. In the cupboard I have got a couple of tins of them but I've also got an unopened pack in dried format. The dried ones have been there for a while, I bought them in a burst of enthusiasm during the lockdown and there they have sat ever since.
In principle, I'd rather buy dried legumes and beans because it is easier to carry them home on my bike as they are a lot lighter, they don't contain preservatives and don't leave me with a metal tin to recycle. As a bonus, they are also significantly cheaper. The only problem is, how?
Time for an experiment. I don't want to cook them on the stove, I'll likely forget about them until they boil dry and then I will have made a problem for myself.
I do know that some beans can safely be cooked from dried in the slow cooker but with some (kidney beans for example) it is dangerous as they don't get hot enough to kill off the lectin in their skins. A quick check online tells me that we are OK with chickpeas.
All I have done is put them in the slow cooker with plenty of boiling water (they roughly double in size) and cooked them on LOW for 7 hours. After draining they look (see the photo) and taste exactly like the tinned ones and are ready for use in a recipe, they can also be stored in the fridge for a couple of days.
For reference, a 400g tin of chickpeas actually contains about 250g once drained, to achieve this from dried chickpeas, use about 125g.
I will stick with using dried ones in the future and keep my tins for emergency use if I forget to do the preparation. As the cooking time is basically 'overnight' there really isn't any significant inconverience.
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