Oven-roasted sumac chickpeas with toum

This is Tegan Higginbotham’s ultimate vegetarian dinner party starter. Crunchy and packed with flavour, this dish is best enjoyed messily. Load up lettuce cups with a dollop of toum and sumac-roasted chickpeas and ditch the cutlery for a hands-on, crowd-pleasing way to start your night.

Credit: Jiwon Kim

• serves

  6-8

• prep

  2 hours

• cook

  30 minutes

• difficulty

  Easy

Ingredients

• 700 g good-quality cooked chickpeas (see Note)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 heaped tsp cumin
• 1 heaped tbsp smoked paprika
• ½ tsp chilli powder
• ½ tsp sumac
• Salt and black pepper
• 200 g toum (garlic dip)
• 60 g baby rocket leaves
• 2 baby cos lettuces, leaves separated
• Rocket leaves to garnish, optional

For the dressing 

• 2 tsp Dijon mustard
• ⅓ cup (80 ml) apple cider vinegar
• 1 tsp honey
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• ¼ cup (60 ml) olive oil
• Salt and black pepper, to taste

Drying time: 1 hour

Instructions

1. Drain and rinse the chickpeas, then spread out on a paper-towel lined tray to dry for 1 hour before using.
2. Preheat the oven to 220˚C. Line a large baking tray with baking paper. Combine the chickpeas, olive oil, ground spices and a generous pinch of salt and pepper on the tray and mix well to combine. Bake, tossing occasionally, for 30 minutes, or until golden and crisp, then remove from the oven.
3. Combine the ingredients for the dressing in a jar with a screw-top lid and shake well combine. Set aside.
4. To serve, spoon some toum onto a large serving platter. Top with the chickpeas and rocket leaves.
5. Dress the baby cos lettuce with the dressing, then serve the sumac chickpeas with the dressed leaves on the side. Garnish with rocket leaves if desired. Spoon a little toum and chickpeas into the lettuce cups and eat.

Note

We used Movida chickpeas and Sarafian toum.

Photography by Jiwon Kim.

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Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.