By – Veena Sashikumar
SPICED MIXED BEANS
This was created by accident. I had a lot of watery chole and I decided to add more chickpeas to it but my gas stopped working. I decided I’ll put it in to oven for a bit so the water dehydrates a bit and the chickpeas gets cooked. I completely forgot it was in there and when I realised it was fully dehydrated and the chickpeas were crunchy. It was very yummy and crunchy with tea.
So I refined it a bit where I did not have to make the whole chole but can get away with all dry ingredients and cans of beans.
INGREDIENTS:
- Chickpeas / mixed beans / kidney beans / white beans canned – 2 (I prefer the ones that do not have added salt)
- Masalas of your choice – 3 to 4 tbsp. (I use a mix of chilli powder, chaat masala, chole or garam masala, turmeric and amchur. I generally use more of the chaat masala & amchur)
- Seeds and spices (optional) – 3 to 4 tbsp. ( I add all sort of things to this like sesame seeds, chia seeds, fennel seeds (saunf), ajwain, jeera, garlic powder, etc)
- Oil – 1 tbsp.
- Salt to taste – I normally don’t add salt because of the chaat masala
METHOD
- Drain out the liquid from the cans and give the beans a quick wash.
- In a bowl add the beans, masalas, seeds, spices and oil and mix well so the beans are quoted well with the masalas.
- Line a baking tray and put the spiced beans in the tray and place in oven at 170o for 20 – 30 mins. You can take them out earlier or later too depending on how crunchy you want the beans to be.
- Your tasty snack for tea time is ready.
VARIATIONS
- There can be so many variations to this one.
- You can use simple salt & pepper with a little bit of vinegar
- You could add onion & tomato when baking
- When serving you can serve with raw chopped tomato, onion, chilly and coriander
- If you like a little sweetness in your food, then add a little bit of sugar before baking
- Instead of beans you can use nuts like cashew, almonds, peanuts. Or seeds like pumpkin, flax or pepita.
- When you are making this with nuts or seeds you need to keep the oven at a lower temperature as they tend to get burnt fast. So keep an eye. I normally keep the oven at 140 – 150o for 10 – 15 mins then keep an eye on the nuts.
I would love to hear your variation of this recipe. Post me your variations so I have something new to try the next time!
About Veena:
I am a food and nutrition enthusiast. I love baking and experimenting with new recipes. Some of my cakes are displayed on my facebook page – annibunnycakes. And my recipe blog is cookwithveena.blogspot.com. So post your thoughts & comments when you try a recipe or like a cake.
