Pressure Cooker Chickpeas with Toasted Parmesan Bread Crumb Crust

I'm a loyal subscriber to Canal House Cooking by Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer. It is one of my favorite…magazines? Quarterlies? Series of small cookbooks? I'm not sure what to call it, exactly; they publish three issues a year. Except when they don't; they took a sabbatical last year to finish their cookbook.
I'm not the most patient person - it seems like it's been over a year since I got an issue of Canal House. I'm starting to show signs of withdrawal.

Hamilton and Hirsheimer are back with Canal House Cooking Volume 8: Pronto!, and it was worth the wait. As usual, it is stuffed with simple, spectacular recipes (Why, hello, grilled butterflied chicken alla diavola. Where have you been all my life?).

Jump to:

• 🥫Ingredients
• 🥘 Substitutions
• 🛠 Equipment
• 📏Scaling
• 🤨 Soaking chickpeas?
• Sorting Beans
• 💡Tips and Tricks
• Pressure Cooker Chickpeas with Toasted Parmesan Bread Crumb Crust
• ☃️ Storage
• 🤝 Related Posts
• 💬 Comments

Today, I was inspired by the combination of two ingredients - chickpeas and breadcrumbs - in one of their pasta dishes. Chickpeas and breadcrumbs sounded like a great combination. (Maybe too good of a combination - I didn't bother reading the rest of the recipe and went straight for the bag of dried chickpeas in my pantry.)

Now, this recipe may seem like a lot of steps - pressure cook the chickpeas, sauté the chickpeas, broil the breadcrumb crust. It's not that bad, really - especially if you pressure cook the chickpeas ahead of time, like I suggest in the notes section. (See my pressure cooker chickpeas recipe here.)

I'm not a vegetarian, and I don't pretend to that I'll ever become one. But if I ever do, dishes like this are what will make it possible. The creamy chickpeas, salty Parmesan, and crunchy bread crumbs give me everything I get out of a good cut of meat.

🥫Ingredients

• Dried Chickpeas
• Baking soda
• Onion
• Bay Leaf
• Olive oil
• Lemon
• Shredded parmesan
• Panko bread crumbs
• Parsley

See recipe card for quantities.

🥘 Substitutions

Chickpeas are also called Garbanzos in Spanish, or Ceci in Italian.

No dried chickpeas? Substitute 2 (15-ounce) cans of chickpeas, drained, and start with the sauté step.

You can replace the onion with a couple of unpeeled cloves of garlic, or skip it altogether.

You can also skip the bay leaf if you don't have any. Beans, water, and a little salt are enough for cooking the beans - but the onion and bay add a subtle extra flavor to the beans.

I like olive oil in this recipe - it adds some extra Mediterranean flavor to the dish - but a neutral vegetable oil will work, too.

Shredded pecorino Romano is a less expensive substitute for the shredded parmesan, with a similar (though slightly stronger) taste.

I like the extra crunch from Japanese-style Panko bread crumbs, but regular bread crumbs will work too.

🛠 Equipment

A 6-quart pressure cooker. (Or larger - this recipe was originally cooked in my 10-quart stovetop pressure cooker, but I switched to full time Instant Pot use years ago.)

Pressure cooker dried beans are one of the reasons I became a pressure cooker convert. Try them - you'll never go back to canned beans. (OK, maybe you will, for convenience - but see the Storage section for tips on make ahead freezer beans.)

I switch to a 12-inch frypan for the sauté step - the chickpeas crisp up quicker in a single layer- and it needs to be a broiler-safe pan to toast the bread crumbs.

📏Scaling

This recipe scales down easily - cut everything in half if you don't need as many beans, or have a 3-quart pressure cooker. Scaling up runs into space issues; if you have an 8-quart pressure cooker, or larger, you can double this recipe, but it's too much to fit in a 6-quart pressure cooker. (And you'll need a second frypan, too.)

🤨 Soaking chickpeas?

I get the "to soak, or not to soak?" question all the the time. I don't soak my chickpeas in this basic recipe. They don't need an overnight soak, and cook to tenderness with 45 minutes at high pressure.

That doesn't mean you can't soak the beans. They turn out fine, though the bean broth isn't quite as full bodied. Soaked beans cook much quicker, 20 minutes at high pressure. I use that when I'm cooking the beans with other ingredients, where the shorter cooking time keeps me from overcooking the whole dish just to get the beans tender.

Sorting Beans

Beans are an agricultural product, and stuff tends to creep in when they are processed. Beans should always be sorted and rinsed before using, to get rid of any twigs, stones, clumps of dirt, or broken beans.

To sort the beans, I pour them out on one side of a rimmed baking sheet (a half-sheet pan), to keep the beans from escaping. Then I slowly run my fingers through the pile of beans, pulling them towards me on the sheet. I watch the beans as they move, looking for anything that doesn't seem right. If I see something, I poke around in the beans until I find what caught my eye, and discard it. I repeat this a couple of times, until I'm satisfied everything is out of the beans.

Then I dump the beans into a fine mesh strainer and rinse them under cold running water, to wash off any dirt or dust still on the beans.

Now the beans are sorted, rinsed, and ready for soaking or cooking.

💡Tips and Tricks

• Salt your bean water! "Salt toughens beans" is a myth. Salting before cooking helps season the beans all the way through as they cook.
• If your beans are still tough when the cooking time is over, especially any "floaters" at the top of the pot, give the beans a stir, lock the lid, and pressure cook for another five minutes. Older beans take longer to cook, and if the beans have been sitting in the shelf at your store for a while, they may need extra time.

Inspired by: Canal House Cooking Volume 8: Pronto! by Hamilton and Hirsheimer

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☃️ Storage

A 2-cup container of cooked chickpeas, with cooking liquid, replaces a 15-ounce can of beans from the grocery store. They'll last in the refrigerator for a few days, and freeze for up to 6 months. I always make extra beans, and freeze the leftovers for use in other recipes. Freezer beans are ready to use with about 5 minutes in the microwave, and are so much better than canned.

🤝 Related Posts

Pressure Cooker Hummus
Pressure Cooker Chickpeas
Sauteed Chickpeas

My complete list of pressure cooker recipes

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