What is chickpea flour used for? [closed]

Chickpea flour (gram flour, besan) is very useful in Indian cookery.

The most common use in the West is probably for making bhajis and pakora. The most popular of which are Onion Bhajis, very popular in the UK. They are essentially an spiced onion fritter, shaped in either discs or balls. Any vegetables can be used to make pakora (which is essentially the same thing) or bhajis, but spinach (sag pakora), aubergine (us eggplant, brinjal bhaji), potato (aloo pakora) or cauliflower (gobi pakora) are the most common, sometimes in combination.

Gram flour is also used for making poppadoms (also papad, papadum, a crisp fried pancake, served as an accompaniment to meals with chutney.

One of the more commonly seen uses is in chevda (sometimes chivda), or as we call it in the UK usually Bombay Mix (I believe it is called Punjabi Mix in the US). A mixture of dried savoury snacks, coated in spice. One of the primary ingredients is sev, a dried noodle made from gram flour. Mixtures predominantly composed of sev are called sev mamra.

There are also a number of Indian sweets made with besan.

Besan Barfi (barfi is something akin to fudge, made with condensed milk):

Besan Ladoo (little sweet balls):

NB. You can use it as an egg substitute in vegan cookery, but soya flour works better for the same purpose and, in my opinion, has less associated flavour.

In addition to what Orbling said, chickpea flour (called besan in Hindi), can also be used for making cheela or puda, which are like the Western pancake.

Also in addition to the ones Orbling mentioned, Mysore pak is another sweet that can be made with besan.

Chickpea - Garbanzo flour

I use it in many ways. Normally I start with the whole pea and run it through my Vita-mix blender, quite often along with lentils, great white northern beans. Depending on my end use I may run the batch through a sieve and rerunning coarse through the blender again.

1. The floured bean mix I keep some ready on the shelf for soup & sauce thickener _ and flavor. It is quick to cook.
2. When doing vegetarian meat recipes, I normally do a flouring of garbanzo, red winter wheat, etc. using about 1/2 this mix to approximately 1/2 vital. In this case I shoot for about 75-80% fine to the coarse thus introducing some texture into the completed recipe. I normally use the foil and steaming method over the boiling stock.
3. Hummus: sprout the garbanzo s { 2 -3 days} then dry the garbanzo at a low temperature. The flour in the blender. And of course your choices of the other hummus additives. Be inventive. Note normally I skip the drying phase and just blend the sprouted garbanzos into a paste - and then refrigerate.

Nobody has mentioned socca? It's a delicious pancake from Nice, France. I first had it in Brooklyn at Pates Et Traditions where they serve it very crispy and buttery. Here is a recipe.

there's an italian hors d'oeuvre/bread-like side dish called "farinata" that is basically made with just chickpea flour, salt, olive oil, and not much else that is very delicious. it's kind of like polenta, but not exactly the same. very very easy to make. check out google!

I use it to make Indian-style onion fritters. I think it's pretty commonly used in South Asian cooking, especially when things are fried.

You can read some special dishes which ask for chickpea flour on Wikipedia.

Here you see some dishes which are more tastier because of the chickpea flour.

I sometimes use it to thicken stews or gravies. It contributes an excellent flavor.

You can use it to make felafel also. http://www.neetascleanrecipes.com/2010/08/baked-falafel-green-wraps.html

the best Anzac biscuits my kids and I have had were made with besan flour.

You can use it to make Sicilian panelle! They Are delicious! 1 cup Garbanzo Flour 2 cups tepid water 2 Tbs of fresh chopped parsley Pinch of Salt and Pepper Cutting board Frying pan Vegetable Oil

Combine flour, water, and a pinch of salt in a pot, mix well with an electric mixer (you will see bubbles continue mixing until all bubbles and lumps are clear). Next move pot to the stove and place on medium heat. Add the parsley and a pinch of salt and mix well. Also add a pinch of pepper as desired. Continuously stir flour/water on stove until thickened. Remove from stove, pour mix onto cutting board, spread mixture out on board and let cool. Once cooled cut into squares, about 3”x3” and about a 1/4" in thickness. Cover the bottom of the pan with vegetable oil, heat oil, once the oil is hot we are ready to fry the Panelle. You want each side of the Panelle to be a golden brown in color and crispy in texture. The amount of time it will take to fry depends on how hot the oil is. You don't want the oil too hot, you want to fry the Panelle slowly so that they don’t burn. You can serve the Panelle with marinara sauce for dipping, use them in a sandwich, or alone.

How about tortillitas, a seafood pancake from Spain?

I found out once, when we were experimenting with some recipes for a vegan/gluten-intolerant guest coming into the restaurant, that profiteroles may be made with 100% chickpea flour and will come out more or less identical to normal profiteroles, only slightly less puffy. I would suggest only using them for savoury applications; I have not been able to figure out a sweet accompaniment that really worked (yet).

There are lot's of Persian recipes that use Chickpea flour too.
Including ?????? ??????, ????, ?????
I need to find out the English names, and I'll post some photos right out of our kitchen (hopefully soon).

Chickpea batter (compare the pancakes/cheela mentioned above) also makes a good egg substitute in dishes where an egg garnish/pieces of cooked scrambled egg are used, eg japchae, pad thai or fried rice dishes.

I'm very surprised no one has mentioned this, but paratha, chapati and roti are all often made with chickpea flour.