We started off Chickpea Month with a use of chickpeas that many might not know about. That liquid inside a can of chickpeas? It is called aquafaba and can be used as an egg replacement.
It was my brother’s birthday and he is more of a pie guy than a cake guy, so to celebrate (remotely, in these COVID times) we made a pie with a chickpea aquafaba meringue.
I say we, but it was actually my 14 year old daughter who did all the work (it was Jan 31 and I was making the Black-Eyed Pea Pecan pie at the time, which also turned out well). She used this recipe. Recommended: the lemon curd was nice and flavourful, and the coconut crust was good too. We were impressed by the meringue as well! Fluffed up, and didn’t taste beany at all.
It did take *a lot* of whipping with the hand mixer. A tip is to put the aquafaba in the fridge first, which she did, but it still took a lot of beating. It deflated a lot in a day or two, but by then we’d eaten most of the pie anyway 🙂