Chickpea Balls with Curry Sauce

Great finger food, aperitif dinner, or even a delicious and tasty vegetarian main course.
My grandchildren love them.
I managed to get the second of my grandchildren, who couldn’t even stand to see chickpeas from afar, to eat them.
You can prepare the mixture well in advance and fry it at the last moment.
These balls can be fried in the traditional way or in an air fryer.

Meatballs, in general, are all irresistible, whether it’s the more traditional meatballs, tuna meatballs in sauce, or swordfish meatballs, and the numerous versions of vegetable meatballs, such as zucchini ones or the much-loved simple eggplant balls or those in tomato sauce.
In this recipe, I propose them with chickpeas and curry sauce.
The recipe is very simple, and you can make the mixture in advance, frying it only at the last moment. In the procedure, we start with already cooked chickpeas. Otherwise, remember to soak the chickpeas 12-16 hours before cooking them for about 2 and a half hours in a traditional pot or 30 minutes in a pressure cooker.

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Cost: Very cheap
Preparation time: 10 Minutes
Portions: 5
Cooking methods: Frying, Air Frying
Cuisine: Italian
Seasonality: All seasons

290.11 Kcal

calories per serving

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Energy 290.11 (Kcal)
Carbohydrates 29.90 (g) of which sugars 5.29 (g)
Proteins 10.06 (g)
Fat 14.41 (g) of which saturated 2.29 (g)of which unsaturated 9.42 (g)
Fibers 6.19 (g)
Sodium 250.22 (mg)

Indicative values for a portion of 150 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA^* and FoodData Central^** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.

^* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ^** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov

Ingredients

To make Chickpea Balls with Curry Sauce, we need:

8.8 oz cooked, boiled chickpeas (drained also canned)
1 egg
1.8 oz breadcrumbs (seasoned Sicilian style see my recipe)
1 tsp curry
1 tsp sweet paprika
1 tsp mustard
to taste breadcrumbs (seasoned Sicilian style)
to taste sunflower seed oil
5.3 oz Greek yogurt
3 tsp curry
1 tsp mustard
to taste salt
to taste pepper

Tools

What we need to make the

1 Food Processor
1 Pan

Steps

Let’s go to the kitchen

The first thing to prepare is the Sicilian seasoned breadcrumbs with my recipe, click here.
Use boiled chickpeas, drain them
pour them into a food processor along with 1 egg
add the seasoned breadcrumbs, curry, sweet paprika, and mustard, along with a pinch of salt and a grind of pepper.
Blend until you obtain a dense paste, adding more breadcrumbs if necessary.
Transfer the obtained paste into a bowl.
The consistency should be dense but not too much. Adjust if necessary with a tablespoon of breadcrumbs.
Place the breadcrumbs for breading on a plate. Moisten your hands and take a walnut-sized portion of mixture each time to form balls. Quickly roll them in the breadcrumbs
Place the balls on a plate.
Now decide the frying method:
If using the air fryer, give the balls a light spray of seed oil and cook for 5 minutes at 392°F.
If using the deep fryer, fill it with seed oil and bring it to 392°F, place the balls in the basket, and cook until golden.
In a pan, which is my preferred cooking method, add a little seed oil and heat it until, when immersing a wooden skewer, many bubbles form around it.
Fry the balls, ensuring they brown on both sides.
Drain them and transfer them to a bowl with absorbent paper.
Mix the Greek yogurt with 3 teaspoons of curry, 1 of mustard, salt, and pepper, and, if you like, a bit of chili pepper.
Serve the balls with the sauce and some vegetables of your choice.