QUICK CHICKPEA
AND SPINACH STEW
WITH GINGER
Restaurant fare is both complex and time-consuming to
make—that’s why you pay a lot for it. But bringing some
of that flavor home needn’t be either.
This chickpea and spinach stew is based on the
garbanzos con espinacas that I used to make with Chef
John Critchley at Toro in Boston. It’s about as classic a
Spanish bar snack as there ever was, and you’ll find it all
over Spain, flavored with everything from smoky chorizo
and rich morcilla (blood sausage) to simpler preparations
served with nothing but a spritz of bright sherry vinegar.
At the restaurant, we’d painstakingly make vegetable
stock, brine dried beans, sweat aromatics, braise spinach,
and crush olives under the hooves of real live Spanish
burros to scatter over the finished dish. At least, we did
most of that stuff. Painstakingly tasty is how I’d describe
that kind of food. At home, I’m happy to take a couple of
shortcuts.
This version, which ends up somewhere between a soup
and a stew, relies on canned chickpeas and their liquid for
body, but giving them a bit of a simmer with some
aromatics—garlic, onion, bay leaf, and smoked paprika—
adds a ton of flavor to them. (Remember the lessons on
canned beans in Chapter 2?) The unique part is the bit of