Chorizo and Chickpeas in Paprika-Tomato Sauce

I love food-- cooking, eating or even looking at it. I like going to Borough Market even if I know I can't afford the gourmet ingredients or delicacies there. But on a recent trip, I don't know what came over me and I got half a chorizo sausage. I think it was the recent Nigel Slater chorizo and chickpea stew video that I was watching on BBC iplayer, plus the smell of the sizzling chorizos outside Brindisa, that convinced the poor miser side of my brain to get it.

Then I realised I got the wrong chorizo, you want the soft semi-cured chorizo for cooking. The fully cured one, which I got, is much harder and can be sliced thinly and eaten 'raw' as tapas or over crusty bread, kind of like Italian salami or Chinese lap cheong. And is more expensive. Boo. It isn't that bad though, because in a cured sausage, the meat develops so much flavour over time that you need less to flavour the food it goes into, also it's like meat compressed, so there's more than you see. It was about 2.50 pounds for that and I think i can squeeze 4 servings from that, especially beefed up with legumes and vegetables.

I decided to make the most out of my mistake, and converted the Plan A paprika-tomato stew gravy into a paprika-tomato sauce to go over the seared chorizo and cooked chickpeas. And was very happy that I made a "mistake" (:

Chorizo and Chickpeas in Paprika-Tomato Sauce

Serves 2

Ingredients

About 1/2 of half a cured chorizo horseshoe-shaped sausage, sliced into 1-cm thick coins (I'm sorry I really don't know how much that is in grams. but you don't have to be too accurate!)

1 cup of (soaked, then) cooked chickpeas (reserve about 1/4 cup of the cooking liquid)

1 large onion, sliced thinly

1 large tomato, diced (or you can use about 1/4 cup of canned tomatoes)

1 tsp of paprika

1 tsp of chilli powder (or more or less depending on how manly you are ;)

1 sprig of fresh thyme (or you can use dried!)

splash of balsamic vinegar

1/2 tbsp of evoo (don't need a lot because of the fat in the chorizo)

To serve

about 2 tbsp of chopped fresh parsley

zest of half a lemon

Method

1. Over medium high heat, sear the chorizo slices in the olive oil on both sides. It should ooze out some wonderful paprika-infused oil of its own.

2. Add the onions and saute till they turn translucent.

3. Add the herbs and spices, diced tomato and splash of balsamic vinegar, and continue cooking till the tomato fully cooks down.

4. Add the cooked chickpeas plus a bit of the cooking liquid and then simmer until all the juices and liquid evaporates and the sauce thickens and becomes quite sticky.

5. Serve with the chopped fresh parsley and lemon zest tossed through to brighten everything up!

If you love sizzling sausages or salami and smoky sweet spicy sour sticky sauces (I'm getting really good at alliteration huh), you'll love this!

This is an entry for My Legume Love Affair#31, the "Make it with Paprika Mondays" Challenge, and Slightly Indulgent Tuesday.

Tuscan Butter Bean Soup

One of the many things I love about going to the Farmers' Market, is finding unusual vegetables you can't find in the supermarkets. I got this Cavolo Nero, a.k.a Tuscan Kale, a.k.a. Dinosaur Kale, a.k.a. Black Cabbage (I love the first name most; makes a vegetable sound posh.) With that, I decided to make a hearty bean soup for the winter nights. You can use any type of bean, or even a mix, it originally calls for canellini beans, which are the normal shaped/sized white beans you see, but I had butter beans. They're giant!

Compare: Red adzuki bean v.s. Black bean v.s. Butter bean

Tuscan bean soup is traditional Italian peasant fare, so even though I've seen many recipes adding a bit of bacon or pancetta here and there for more flavour, I've decided to keep this really cheap and simple and rustic.

Tuscan Butter Bean Soup

serves 3-4

2 large onions, chopped

2 sticks of celery, chopped

2 medium carrots, chopped

4 cloves of garlic, chopped

2 large tomatoes, peeled and chopped (original recipes call for canned but I didn't have any)

1 cup butter beans, soaked overnight and rinsed

1 large head of tuscan kale, chopped into bite-sized pieces

4 cups chicken stock

2 bay leaves

1 tsp of dried thyme (or 3 sprigs thyme)

1 tsp of dried oregano (or 1 sprig oregano)

2-3 tbspsextra virgin olive oil

salt, black pepper

parmesan (optional)

1. Place the beans in a pot, bring to a boil, and let it simmer for 1 to 1 1/2 hours till just soft, but not mushy.

2. In a large pot, over medium heat, saute the onions, carrot and celery until onions just turn translucent.

3. Add the garlic and the tomatoes, cook until tomatoes cook down.

4. Add the herbs, then the stock, then the beans and the bean cooking liquid if necessary.

5. Cook for another half an hour, before adding the kale, and cooking another 20 min or so until the beans and kale are both tender.

6. Serve with shavings of parmesan (opt) on top.

This soup keeps really well, in fact it gets better the day after. The peasants used to make enough to last 3 days, they reboil on day 2 with a bit of bread, and then on day 3, they reboil again with the stale bread which thickens the soup and gives a thick thick hearty stew called ribollita. I wish I left enough to try how that will work out.

Chinese Black Bean Soup

More pregnancy/confinement food haha. Beans this time(: They're just fantastic in soups and stews because they help thicken the soup up, and they add body and fullness. Chinese soups are not just about taste, they're more like tasty tonics.

For instance, in this soup, the black bean (a.k.a. black turtle bean. how cute is that! NOT black-eyed peas.) is known to be a rich source of protein, fibre and antioxidants, and in TCM terms, it tonifies the kidney, strengthens the yin, and nourishes the blood. The red jujube dates are very common in Chinese soups, they not only sweeten the soup (not in the sugary way), but helps to harmonize the effect of all the other ingredients or herbs in the soup to nourish the blood, spleen and stomach. And since this soup (like many Chinese soups) make use of pork bones to give it that body and flavour, is an excellent bone broth, full of calcium and more.

Chinese Black Bean Soup

serves 2-3

Ingredients

200g pork with bones (my mum prefers pork ribs. I just use any meaty bones that my butcher gives for free)

2/3 cup black beans, soaked and rinsed

6 red jujube dates, pitted

3-4 dried scallops

2l water

Method

1. Blanch pork bones in boiling water (you'll see some disgusting scum floating in the water). Drain and discard the water.

2. Combine all ingredients and bring to a boil for 5 min, then simmer for at least 2h. Or transfer to a slowcooker like I did, on low for 6h, or on high for 3h.

UPDATE: I left it on high for 6h by accident, and ended up getting a super flavourful and thick soup, and the..white bones? tendon? (someone enlighten me what this part is) became soft enough you could slurp it out. Usually my slow cooking already results in them being soft enough to chew on, but this was like..

I like (: