Gram Flour

Alright! My first "Request" post! I announced my blog at 10pm on Facebook yesterday. I got my first request for "gluten free flat bread recipes" less than 5 minutes later and my second less than an hour after that. Who am I to deny my adoring public?

This is about Gram Flour, I'm still researching other avenues. If anyone else has any requests, I'll try to work 'em in.

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Mmmmm. Pakoras.

You know, those little golden-brown nuggets of joy that you get in Indian restaurants? They're filled with minced veggies, onion, garlic and spices and resemble, to my Southern eye, nothing so much as hushpuppies. They're one of my favorite parts of visiting an Indian restaurant. "What," my curiosity elbowed me, "are they made of?"

So I went to my eponymous source on "Indian Cooking" at the time (by Madhur Jaffrey) and found nothing. Pakoras aren't listed among the exciting dishes that appear in its pages. Then I did a little research on the internet - where you can find a surprising amount of detailed information on food and cooking for almost any culture you care to name - and discovered that pakoras are made with "Gram Flour". Hmmm...

To my Western mind, this brought up images of Graham Crackers and the Reverend Sylvester Graham trying to come up with a food that would suppress our more carnal urges. No, something wasn't right about that either.

Digging a little deeper, I discovered that "Gram" (or Gram flour) is a term for finely ground chickpeas. Oh boy! I love chickpeas! I have got to get me some of that!

Alas, I had no clue where to find it. Then fate intervened. While wandering around the Triangle, I discovered the Grand Asia Market. It's a pretty cool place where you can find almost anything you could possibly want for Asian cuisine (including bull penises and sheep uterine - I'm not kidding). It's an old grocery store that's been converted into something that seems pretty far off the traditional Western experience. There's a cafe where they prominently display roast ducks and have giant steamer baskets filled with a variety of bao (steamed, stuffed bun). They sell videos, house wares, jewelry, statuary (I've had my eye on one of those Maneki Neko's that actually wave), and of course lots and lots of food. The air is pervaded by the smell of the fish department and loads of fresh produce (some of the usual stuff and lots of cool, obscure stuff too - frozen whole durrian anyone?). It's daunting the first time you walk into it, but then you get distracted and start exploring.

On one such exploration, I came across the South Asian section. This is a great section and I buy many of my whole spices because it's one of the best deals you'll find. Of course, there was the Gram flour in a 5 lb bag. "How would I use that much?" asked the calm voice of reason. "Gimme!" screamed the inner child as it trampled the voice of reason on the way to the shelf.

Finally. I had it. Now all I had to do was find a recipe for it.

For those of you who have looked up any recipe in more than one source, you will be aware that it can be frustrating to receive advice that is both good and bad in the same recipe. On the internet, that frustration is an order of magnitude higher. But after searching and reading for hours (possibly days), I came up with a simple recipe based on the commonalities of several recipes. This is a pretty good technique to use if you're trying to produce a classic dish on which everyone has an opinion. Just pick the most common ingredients as the core of your recipe, add in a few of the different ingredients that sound like they'd taste good and ignore the wilder suggestions.

Anyway. Here it is:

Pakoras

0.25 Teaspoons Baking Soda
2 Tablespoons Oil (I usually have canola on hand - just something neutral)
1 Cup Gram Flour
1.5 Teaspoons Salt (or to taste)
0.5 Cups Water

The method:
With a whisk combine the oil and baking soda in a large mixing bowl until it turns frothy.
Add Gram Flour, Salt and Water and any spices you desire (commonly, Turmeric, cumin, coriander and black pepper for an "Indian" flavor - but not necessary). Mix well.
Let rest at room temperature for about 30 minutes (this is an important step that allows all the gram flour to soak up the water and do its magic).
Add assorted vegetables (minced garlic, chopped broccoli, chopped onions, chopped cauliflower, etc.) - about 2-3 cups.
Scoop out roughly bite-sized pieces of the mixed batter and deep fry at 375 F until golden brown. Drain and serve.

Preferably with chutney and sriracha.

Simple. "But hold the presses," I thought after the first time I made them. I ran to the cupboard and grabbed the box of falafel mix lurking there. First ingredient: ground chickpeas. Reviewing the directions, I noticed that it suggests resting the mixture for about half an hour after mixing with water. Curioser and curioser. [I'll address falafel in another post. -j]

I dug out the "Frugal Gourmet Cooks Three Ancient Cuisines" and turned frantically to page 562 to find the Roman "Cecina" (or chickpea pizza - which is still popular in Italy today) recipe that was lurking there. That recipe used rehydrated whole chick peas. I had tried it years before, ending up with a sodden, tasteless mass of chickpea paste, but I figured that there was a chance it would work now that I had figured out the secret to gram flour.

A little experimentation, led to the following recipe. The first time I made it, I used my cast iron frying pan and it ended up looking more than a little like green cornbread topped with tomatoes. A pizza pan might give it more of a pizza type look. I bet you could even bake it, then top it with tomato sauce, your favorite pizza toppings and mozzarella and then re-bake at 400-450F for a few minutes for a kick-ass pizza. I might leave out the spinach, garlic and rosemary for a proper pizza, but you'll know best. Let me know if you try it.

Jason's Cecina:

Pakora batter made with olive oil instead of neutral cooking oil, rested.
0.5 Cups Chopped Cooked Frozen Spinach (or steamed fresh) Be sure to cool it down and squeeze as much of the water out of it as you can.
Minced Garlic (to taste)
1 Tablespoon Chopped Fresh Rosemary (or 1-2 teaspoons ground dried)
1 Roma Tomato sliced thinly (as thinly as you can)

Add spinach, garlic and rosemary to batter and mix well. Pour into oiled pan (baking dish or whatever you have on hand - I like to preheat my cast iron skillet with some olive oil in it [it will smoke, so disable your smoke alarm] and then pour the batter into it for an interesting texture to the crust) and top with sliced tomatoes.
Bake at 375F for 35 minutes. It takes a while. If you're doing it in a pizza pan, I'd probably check it at 15 minutes and pull it no later than 20 minutes - the old toothpick in the middle will tell you if it's done (if it comes out clean, it's done).

This is a recipe I've tried a couple of times. I wouldn't call it quite ready for prime-time, but it's pretty simple. Sometimes it can be a bit dry (I'll probably try it at 350F for the same amount of time first). If you come up with a better way, let me know. I'll probably play around with it in a day or so and put some pictures up.

One other thing. After playing around with it, I thought it might be kind of interesting to thin the batter out and make crepes with it. It works great. Depending on the thinness of the crepes you desire, add around 0.25 cups of additional water (it should be a pourable consistency like a pancake batter). Scoop it out onto a griddle or crepe pan (preheated to medium-high, a bit higher than egg cooking temp) and spread it around. While it's cooking (it will get brittle if cooked too long) fill it with whatever you think would taste good. Then fold it up into a neat little package, flip it a couple of times to make sure everything is good and hot and serve immediately. I'm betting if you sweetened the batter and filled it with cooked fruit, you'd never even know it was chickpeas.

Gram flour does have a distinctive, "bean-like" flavor, but it is a mild one and can easily overpowered by other flavorings. I have seen some suggestions that chickpeas contain relatively high levels of galactose and can affect fertility for some women (I also read it on the internet, so get your grains of salt). I am neither a doctor nor a nutritionist. If you're concerned about that, talk to someone who is a doctor.

Buon Appetit!