Orecchiette cooked in chickpea & tomato sauce

April 22, 2018

Regular readers will be well aware of our long-standing love for Ottolenghi's vego recipes. The usual downside of a Yotam dinner is his over-complicated approach, so we pounced on this week's Guardian column, which promised "smart tricks to simplify your cooking."

This orecchiette recipe really lived up to the promise - it's a super simple one-pot recipe that you can throw together in about half an hour. And it delivers that famous Ottolenghi flavour! The olives and capers do a lot of the heavy lifting, so it's a strong and salty flavour, but the sweetness of the cooked down tomatoes smooths things out a bit. I was completely smitten by this, and I'm already thinking about making it again.

Orecchiette cooked in chickpea & tomato sauce
(a slightly modified version of a recipe from Ottolenghi's Guardian column)

6 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1 can chickpeas, drained
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 tablespoon tomato paste
50ml olive oil
salt and pepper
40g parsley
zest of a lemon
4 tablespoons capers
80g green olives (we bought the pre-pitted ones from the deli)
250g punnet of cherry tomatoes
2 teaspoons caster sugar
2 teaspoons caraway seeds
250g dried orecchiette (or similar pasta)
500ml veggie stock

Combine the garlic, chickpeas, paprika, cumin, tomato paste and olive oil in a large saucepan and sautee for 5-8 minutes. You're trying to get a bit of a crisp onto the chickpeas if you can.

Combine the parsley, lemon zest, capers and olives in a bowl. Add about two-thirds of this mix to your saucepan along with the cherry tomatoes, caster sugar and caraway seeds. Cook for another couple of minutes, stirring regularly.

Add the pasta, stock and another 200ml of water and bring the mix to a simmer. Cover and cook for 12-14 minutes, until the pasta is ready to eat.

Stir in the the leftover parsley mix, drizzle with a couple more teaspoons of olive oil and serve.