Category: legume

Quick and tasty flatbreads with gram flour

Latest from Grannie Kate …..

Flatbreads or bannocks made from oatmeal, beremeal or peasemeal are a traditional food of this region.

I decided to try and make some quick and simple flat breads to serve with soup, but instead of these I decided upon gram or chickpea flour. It’s a fine flour, yellowish in colour. Chickpea is a legume plant like pea, but usually grown in warmer countries.

Gram flour makes an excellent cheese sauce, by the way, for cauliflower cheese or a pasta bake.

These flatbreads are tasty, nutritious and filling. Keep them wrapped in foil and they will retain their freshness for a day or so.

Ingredients
  • 2 cups of chickpea flour
  • 1 cup of natural yoghurt
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 teaspoons of baking powder
Bag of gram flour, the flour in a bowl, add the baking powder and then the yoghurt (photos by Grannie Kate)
What to do
  1. Put the salt, baking powder and flour into a medium sized mixing bowl and mix together.
  2. Add the yoghurt a little at a time stirring with a spoon.
  3. The dough seems to be wet and sticky, but keep mixing and then turn out onto a floured surface.
  4. Make sure your hands are floured then knead the dough lightly for about a minute until it is a smooth ball.
  5. Divide the dough into 6 floured balls, then lightly flatten each one, using either a rolling pin or the palm of your hands until about 2 – 3 mm thick.
  6. Spray some cooking oil into a heavy frying pan, bakestone or skillet until lightly coated, then, when the oil is hot add one or two of the flat breads. Add extra oil in between each batch of two flatbreads.
  7. The flat breads will rise as the baking powder starts to work, so cook each flat bread for 1 or 2 minutes on each side until golden brown.
  8. Keep warm and serve with a fresh leek and potato soup!
Grannie Kate’s chickpea bannocks: form them, press them, fry them and eat them (photos by Grannie Kate).
Optional extras

Add a sprinkling of sesame seeds with a little oil onto the surface of your flat breads before frying them on the bakestone or frying pan. Or try cumin seeds in the same way.

Notes, links

[1] Gram flour is make from chickpea seeds Cicer arietinum – a legume plant grown in many mediterranean and tropical regions as one of the staple protein crops.

[2] For more on the history of flatbread country, see Peasemeal, oatmeal, beremeal bannocks on the Living Field web site.

[3] Like most legumes, chickpea fixes its own nitrogen from the air, so needs little if any mineral N fertiliser to help it grow and yield. Since mineral N is one of the main pollutants and sources of GHG emissions, growing and eating chickpea and other pulses is good for soil and the planet.