Chickpea Schnitzels

This week called for comfort food owing to the continued cold wet weather. I was beginning to contemplate building an ark, but the rain finally cleared up today...phew! Wednesday night dinner was creamy mashed potato, broad beans and spinach in burnt butter with almonds, and chickpea schnitzel - with home made mushroom and onion gravy.

The schnitzels were pretty quick to make, took me five minutes to put together once the onion and garlic were sauteed, and in the oven for about 15 minutes. I saved 1/3 onion and garlic to make the gravy. The Beloved was pretty keen to just go and buy some Fry's brand schnitzels, but I figured I could just make some up, and they were probably a lot more nutritious, even if the Fry's ones do taste so darn good!

Ingredients

1 can chickpeas

1 onion

1 large garlic clove

1 tsp crushed ginger

1 T balsamic vinegar

1 T tamari

1 T vegan Worcestershire sauce

1 tsp Vegemite

3/4 cup ground pumpkin seeds and linseed

mixed herbs, salt and pepper to taste

Method

Saute onion and garlic in frying pan on low until soft.

Take 2/3 mixture and put into a bowl.

Empty can of chickpeas, rinse and drain. Add to onion and garlic and smash some of them with a potato masher (or whatever you feel like smashing with!).

Mix Vegemite into vinegar, tamari, and Worcestershire sauce, and then add this as well as all other ingredients to the mixture. Add a little water until mixture sticks together. It should be just sticking together like cookie dough, not sloppy. Shape into schnitzels and put onto a greased tray in the oven for about 15 minutes, until outside is crispy. I did 5, but you could easily get 6 if you made them a bit smaller. Serve with gravy.

I'll make a separate post on gravy as I would like to tweak the recipe a bit before Christmas, but the Massel brand instant gravy is pretty good with a dash of red wine or balsamic vinegar if you want to be lazy!