Its as cold as a witches tit here in London at the moment. The kind of cold that gets into your bones, and wont shift until it’s made to. Which is where this chorizo and chickpea stew comes in. A bit of a riff on the Spicy Spanish Stew I do, this is hotter, spicier, smokier and has all the ingredients to give you that Ready Brek glow, but without having to shovel some unpleasant gruel down your neck.

I use Brindisa’s picante chorizo, as I like it the best, but you can use whichever cooking chorizo floats your boat. Don’t use the salami like cured stuff, as it doesn’t really work for this recipe. Lets crack on.

Ingredients (serves 3-4)

6 cooking chorizo

1 onion, finely chopped

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 medium hot red chilli, de-seeded and finely chopped

1 tsp smoked paprika

1 tsp maras biberi

1 tin of chopped tomatoes (400g)

1 tbs tomato puree

1 tin chick peas (400g)

200ml white wine

500 ml chicken stock

Fresh thyme

Salt & black pepper to taste

Chopped flat leaf parsley to finish

Method

Step one is to skin the chorizo. Run your knife along each sausage and peel off the skin, before chopping each one into 5 or 6 pieces. Next get a heavy based casserole dish or sauce pan good and hot on your hob, and then chuck in the chorizo pieces. Your fry these dry, and after a minute or so you’ll see why. The chorizo gives out lots of lovely paprika infused fat, so there’s no need to add any to the pan. Nicely brown the chorizo all over, and then remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and set aside.

Using the chorizo oil left behind, fry off your onion, garlic and pepper. Tear off the leaves of a few sprigs of thyme and add these too. Once your onions are slightly browned, add the tomato puree, paprika and maras biberi to the pan. Give it all a good stir for 10 seconds or so, and then add the white wine.

Return the chorizo, stirring it into the veg and wine, and once the alcohol has had a chance to burn off, add the chopped tomatoes and chicken stock. Bring this all up to a simmer, and then add the chick peas. Give the sauce a taste, and season with salt and pepper if you feel it’s needed. Once you’re happy, cover the pot and let it gently bubble away for 20 minutes or so.

After this time, remove the lid and continue to simmer for another quarter of an hour. You want to reduce the sauce by around a quarter, so it gets a bit thicker, and the flavors intensify. Once you’ve got the desired consistency, you’re ready to eat. Sprinkle with a generous handful of chopped flat leaf parsley, and serve with griddled sourdough rubbed with garlic and olive oil.

Tags: Brindisa, Chickpea, Chilli, Chorizo, Cold, Garlic, Hot, Maras Biberi, Onion, Piquant, Ready Brek, Smoked Paprika, Smokey, Spicy, Stew, thyme, Tit, Tomato, Weather

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 31st, 2012 at 6:15 pm and is filed under Dinner, Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.