On Food and Cooking

Roasting Though most legumes are cooked in
liquid to soften their starch and cell walls, a
few are parched in dry heat to create a crisp
texture. Peanuts are the most commonly
roasted of the legumes, thanks to their nut-
like oil content and relatively tender
cotyledons. Other beans with lower oil
contents, notably soybeans and chickpeas, are
also roasted to make a nut-like seed. Because
their cotyledons are harder, they’re soaked in
water first, then roasted. The initial high
temperature and moisture soften the cotyledon
cell walls and starch granules; continued
roasting evaporates most of the water to give
a crisp rather than hard texture. The roasting
can be done in a hot pan or oven, or — as is
done in Asia — in sand that has been heated
to 500–600ºF/ 250–300ºC. In India, for
example, chickpeas are heated to around
180ºF/80ºC, moistened with water, rested for
some hours, then roasted in hot sand so that