Chickpeas with spring greens | Garbanzos con col verde

In Spain we eat a lot of chickpeas and pulses in general, it’s an important part of our diet. I always have a few tins in my cupboard to rustle up a quick dinner, it saves you a good couple of hours of simmering. This recipe is super healthy and very traditional, you normally find them as a tapa by themselves but today I needed to make a larger meal for us at home so I added a beautiful fillets of plaice which have turned them into a fantastic “plato principal”. It is more common to find this recipe made with spinach but as I have the spring greens on season and it is one of those ingredients not many people knows how to use I thought I would explain how to cook with them really easily. Enjoy!

INGREDIENTS

• 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

• 1 Spanish onion, chopped

• Half celery stick, chopped

• 5 garlic cloves, sliced

• 1 bay leaf

• 1 tsp cumin powder

• A pinch of white pepper powder

• A pinch of sweet paprika

• 1 pinch of chili flakes

• 1 tbsp of flour

• A shot of white wine

• A glass of water

• 2 (400g) chickpeas tin/jar

• A bunch of spring greens, stalk chopped in chunks, leaves in half
  

  SERVED WITH

• 3 Fillets of plaice

Preparation

1. Place a pot over high heat with the olive oil, the chopped celery, onion and bay leaf and cook for 5 minutes or until light golden. Add the garlic, the stalk of the greens and fry for a further 2 minutes.

2. Add the paprika, the white pepper powder, the chili flakes, cumin, salt, flour and stir for a minute for the spices to fry and the flour to toast. Add the shot of white wine followed by the water and stir vigorously for any potential lumps from the flour to dissolve. Add the rinsed chickpeas, the leaves of the spring greens and simmer for 5 minutes or until ready.

3. You can eat it as a tapa on it’s own or as a garnish to a lovely loin of fish. As you can see in the video all I did was to let the fish steam on top of the chickpeas for 5 minutes and it was cooked to perfection!