Vegan Chickpea Hearts

♫ Listening to: Wandering Star by Poliça ♫

When we were in Las Vegas in September/October, David’s birthday dinner was at an italian restaurant at the Wynn called Bartolotta. One of the appetizers on the menu was a chickpea patty cut into triangles and served with a fried caper garnish. It was soooo amazing that it made up for the fact that the boys had to go to the mall to buy shirts with collars because of the Wynn restaurants and their stupid ass dress codes. For a few weeks after that dinner, I seriously just wanted to make a vat of fried capers, and carry them around with me forevermore so I could add them to everything I eat. I recovered from that stage and instead, decided to try to replicate the recipe at home.

Chickpea Hearts Ingredients

• 1 cup chickpea flour
• 1 ½ cups vegetable broth
• olive oil

Chickpea Hearts Directions

Make 1 ½ cups of vegetable broth or use packaged. I used to buy the Rapunzel bouillon cubes, but it was so hard to get them to dissolve that now I buy this huge jar of vegan Better Than Bouillon vegetable base paste from Costco. I highly recommend it, because it’s way easier to work with and tastes delicious. The only downside is that it takes up precious room in the fridge, and if you’re like me, you likely don’t have a square to spare.

Whisk in the 1 cup of chickpea flour slowly.

Relax for an hour or so to give the mixture time to thicken.

Coat a baking pan with olive oil, pour mixture into pan, and bake at 350° for a half hour.

Remove from oven, let cool for 5 minutes, and cut into shapes with a knife or cookie cutters. I used a small heart-shaped cookie cutter from my heart set for these.

Fried Capers Ingredients

• ¼ - ½ cup capers
• 4 tablespoons safflower or sunflower oil

Fried Capers Directions

Drain and dry the capers using a strainer, and then sandwich them between paper towels.

Heat the 4 tablespoons of oil in a pan on medium-high while capers are drying. The benefit of using safflower or sunflower oil over using olive oil is that those oils can withstand a higher heat before turning into transfats. Olive oil is a low-heat oil.

Fry the capers until they start to change color (3-5 minutes).

Line a plate with many paper towels and place the capers there to absorb any extra oil.

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