Outdoors in the sun, Sophie cooks a chickpea pasta feast for her friends.
Ingredients
For the pasta:
To serve:
Method
- Drain the chickpeas and tip into a saucepan. Cover with fresh cold water and bring up to the boil. Skim off any scum. Simmer until the chickpeas are tender – anything from 30 minutes to 1 ½ hours depending on age and size.
- Take off the heat and leave to cool in their cooking water. DO NOT DRAIN AND THROW THE WATER DOWN THE SINK.
- Now the pasta dough. Mix flour and salt and add enough warm water to make a soft dough - somewhere between 80ml and 120ml. Knead the dough for 5-10 minutes until smooth. Form into a ball, wrap in clingfilm and leave at room temperature for at least 20 minutes.
- During this time, put the olive oil, onion, carrot, celery, garlic, rosemary and chillies (with their seeds) into a saucepan large enough to take the chickpeas and pasta as well. This is your sofrito, ready to be cooked. Place over a moderate heat and fry the sofrito for some ten minutes or so until beginning to colour here and there. Tip in the tomatoes and parsley and stir them around in the oil for a minute or two. Next scoop in all the chickpeas and top with about 1 litre of their cooking water. Season with a little salt. Simmer all of this gently together while you finish the pasta.
- Roll the pasta out on a floured worksurface to a thickness of about 2 mm. Cut in half. Cut the first half into 1 cm wide strips, and set aside. Repeat with the second half, cut these strips in half again so that they are half the length of the first batch. Keep them separate.
- Heat a couple of centimetres of sunflower oil in a saucepan. When it is good and hot, fry about a quarter of the shorter strips in it until golden brown. They will puff up a little in the heat. Scoop out the fried pasta and drain on a tray or plate lined with a double layer of kitchen paper. Repeat with the remaining short strips. Sprinkle them all with a little salt.
- Return to those simmering chickpeas. The mixture should be quite soupy – if necessary, add another ladleful of the chickpea water. Taste and adjust seasonings.
- Now add the long strips of pasta and stir them around a little amongst the chickpeas. Cook for 3-4 minutes until just tender.
- Ladle the chickpeas, pasta and broth into 4 bowls and top each one with some of the crisp fried pasta. Eat at once, with grated cheese.
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