Chickpea Croquette? Hummus Fritter? Whatever. Delicious.

We got our new Vegetarian Times today and coupled with some mild food-blahs and no plans for lunch, we decided to get creative and try something new. Armed with some dry garbanzo beans, we happened to have nearly everything we needed for their recipe for Chickpea Croquettes with Greek Salad Topping (with some Zipper modifications). Given the challenge of making chickpea flour (see below), I actually halved the recipe-- but it gave us plenty for lunch for two.

the Greek Salad topping is very similar to our Arabic Salad (sans mint). Veg Times uses cherry tomatoes and low-fat vegan feta, which we omitted, and no parsley, which we added. :

1 cucumber diced

2 tomatoes diced

1/4 c. parsley chopped

2 green onions chopped

juice of 1 lemon

1 Tb. olive oil

Toss everything together and season with a little salt and black pepper

The Croquettes

1/2 c. chickpea flour (see below)

1 tsp. ground cumin

1/2 tsp. chili powder

1/4 tsp. salt

Chickpea flour is basically made with dry chickpeas, your food processor, and a high tolerance for noisy grinding. It took me nearly 20 minutes to pulverize the beans and sift through a sieve what turns out to be about half a cup of very flour-like chickpeas, indeed. I had to work in small batches, and initially, the huge, hard beans made a TERRIBLE noise-- like gravel stuck in a blender. Just keep pulsing. Eventually it'll break down, and down some more, and if you're impatient like me, you'll take every opportunity to process, dump the crushed mixture out, sift it, dump it back into the processor and repeat. Once you have about 1/2 c., whisk or sift in the spices until well blended, then mix in about 1/3 c. hot water (to get the exact measurement, fill up a half cup measuring cup 3/4 of the way). Once you have a delightful smelling paste, add:

1/2 can of garbanzo beans

3 green onions chopped

1/4 c. tomato diced

1/4 c. parsley chopped

1 clove of garlic minced

juice of 1/2 lemon

1 Tb. olive oil

If it looks and smells like chunky hummus, you're on the right track! Spoon out 1/4 c. "croquettes" in a lightly oiled, heated non-stick pan,and lightly fry over medium heat 3-4 minutes on each side until golden.

BUT WAIT! There's More!

As we were prepping this, Zips started wondering what else might go with these-- so I whipped up a nice vegan tzatziki sauce with our homemade soy yogurt. We didn't have a ton of the right ingredients, but enough to figure something out. When I nail down this recipe, I'll be sure to feature it here, but this worked out just fine, and was a delicious addition:

Vegan Tzatziki Sauce

6 oz. plain soy yogurt

1 clove garlic minced

1/2 cucumber peeled and seeded

juice of 1/2 lemon

1/4 c. parsley

dash of salt

Whiz the garlic and the cucumber up in your food processor (If I had some, I would have added more cucumber, and maybe some fresh mint.). Strain the yogurt (I didn't and had a soupy, liquid sauce) and add it, along with everything else in your processor. You're done!

We ended up pouring the tzatziki sauce over the croquettes-- they were a great cool, creamy addition that prevented them from being too dry. Now I can't imagine eating them without the sauce.