Oven Roasted Crunchy Chickpeas

Today is the second day of Blogging Marathon#22. For a healthy make over kid’s delight, I prepared these crunchy oven roasted chick peas yesterday for our evening coffee. I have seen many recipes for roasted chickpeas in the blogogsphere. I have also seen the fried version of these chickpeas in bakeries and departmental stores. Last month, when I saw Suma’s post on these chickpeas, I bookmarked it immediately. For the make over, I tried it out and was so happy that I tried. It was so tasty, crunchy and perfect for guilt free snacking. As it is meant to be a kid’s dish, I used a small amount of red chilly powder. But for us an extra pinch of red chilly powder can be added to make it spicy. I also added some dried basil and chaat masala for the flavour. We enjoyed it thoroughly.

Ingredients:
Chickpeas-1 1/2 cup
Oil-1 tsp
Salt-to taste
Red Chilly Powder-to taste
Chaat Masala-1/4 tsp
Red Chilly Powder-1/8 tsp
Dried Basil-1/2 tsp

Procedure:
1. Wash and soak chickpeas overnight.
2. Add enough water and boil it in a broad pan until it is cooked.
3. Wash in cold water and spread it on a plate and allow it to dry.
4. Add all the other ingredients to the chickpeas and mix well.
5. Line a baking tray with foil. Spread the prepared chickpeas on the foil.
6. Preheat oven to 200C.
7. Place the tray on middle rack and bake it for 40-50 minutes. Keep on stirring the chickpeas to avoid burning.
8. After 50 minutes, as the chickpeas were still little soft, I reduced the temperature to 150C and placed the tray on top rack.
9. Then it took only 5-10 minutes to get crunchier. Keep on checking the chickpeas because over baking will make it harder. 
10. Remove tray from oven, allow it to cool completely.
11. Store in airtight jar.