Recipe corner: cheese and pepper chickpeas

Lots and lots of food writers are doing sterling work at the moment across all of social media, making loads of recipes and cook-alongs and tricks of the trade available to us mere mortals.  I have always been an avid Ottolenghi fan anyway (his book "Plenty" remains one of our most utilised) but he has had some fabulous stuff over on Instagram which he saves to his Stories. When he mentioned doing a sort of take on cacio e pepe, but with chickpeas, then I had to give it a go.

You will note that lockdown has not improved my food photography skills any.  Sigh.  Although I suspect it would be hard in any case to make a pile of gloopy beige chickpeas look attractive (not really selling it there, am I?)  Anyway, forget about the crappy picture, these chickpeas were DELICIOUS.  Look, so good it made me shout.  D was less enamoured and, of course, he is entitled to his opinion (he is WRONG.)  I suspect that the problem here was partly that I didn't quite get the sides right.  I served them with a tomato and chorizo couscous salad and flatbread which, while nice in their own right, weren't quite...there.  

Anyway.  My chickpeas needed less cooking and slightly more water than Ottolenghi's so I've included my timings and quantities on the below write up - a lot is going to depend on the peas themselves, the soaking, your oven...you just need to cook them until they are nice and soft and most (but not all) of the liquid has been absorbed so that you're left with a very slightly soupy texture that will thicken up into a silken, clinging sauce once the butter and cheese has been added.

Cacio e pepe should really just be about cheese and pepper so don't be afraid to be bold with the latter.  Since Ottolenghi himself supported the initial addition of garlic, I'm going to go one step further and chuck a couple of aromatics in at the cooking stage, but you could quite happily omit these.  Oh, he also originally suggested a couple of pickled chillies as a garnish.  I didn't bother as I had a bit of heat coming through from the couscous, but I think that they would be a lovely addition.

Ingredients

150g dried chickpeas, soaked overnight

Tbsp olive oil

4 cloves of garlic, crushed

Couple of Parmesan rinds

2 bay leaves

Sprig of thyme

750ml water

Pinch of bicarbonate of soda

50g butter, fridge cold

25g Parmesan, finely grated

Heaped tsp black peppercorns, roughly crushed

Serves 2

Preheat the oven to 180 (160 fan).

Take a pan large enough to hold all the soaked chickpeas comfortably and that will go in the oven - some sort of casserole dish is ideal.  Over a low heat, warm the oil and then fry off the garlic for just a minute or so, until the raw edge has disappeared from the smell.

Drain the chickpeas and add to the pot, tossing well in the garlicky oil.  Then throw in the rinds, the bay and the thyme and cover with 750ml of water and a pinch of bicarbonate of soda.  Bring the lot to the boil and then cover and transfer to the oven.

My chickpeas were cooked perfectly after just an hour in the oven - the original recipe called for an hour and forty five minutes.  I would suggest checking after an hour.  Cook until the chickpeas are tender and the consistency is still slightly soupy.  

Remove from the oven and discard the Parmesan rinds and the herbs.

Add the butter and the Parmesan in 4 lots, stirring well each time to ensure that they have melted completely.  The residual heat in the dish should do this without the need to apply any further heat from the hob.  Then finish by stirring through the black pepper and a pinch of salt (if needed).

Serve.  With...something.