Chickpea Stew

I thought I'd throw together a little stew this week. I haven't made it before, and there wasn't a recipe. So goes cooking, though. Recipes can be tedious if that's all you ever use when you cook.

Part of the inspiration for the stew came from the failure of central Arizona to enter a proper autumnal phase, after the equinox, like all the other states. I guess I thought that if I invoked the power of butternut squash and russet potatoes (autumn) to draw the life out of tomatoes and corn (summer), somehow a new season would float in and we'd all be saved.

Alas. The forecast for tomorrow is 104 and sunny.

My stew, on the other hand, was very good. Eating it almost made me believe that I was warming my bones on a cool September evening.

I only call it "chickpea" stew because I don't know what else to call it. It was supposed to be focused on chickpeas, as the "chunk" factor, but I piled so much other stuff in there that they're just one element now. And I like the word "chickpea." Like, a lot. I always used to call them garbanzo beans, but saying that makes me feel heavy-footed and trollish. "Chickpea" makes me feel like a bird. A bird that perches on things and sings sweetly.


CHICKPEA STEW

1 cup dry chickpeas (or 2 cups cooked)
3 fat cloves garlic
1/2 large onion
2 large celery stalks (leaves are fine)
1 medium butternut squash, cleaned but not peeled
3/4 lb russet potato, or red potatoes
Sea salt
Cooking oil
1 tsp red pepper flakes
2 tbsp dry crumbled oregano
2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp powdered mustard
2-3 tbsp red wine vinegar
28 oz can diced tomatoes (fire-roasted are best, as always!)
4 oz frozen chopped spinach
4 oz frozen corn kernels
Tabasco sauce
Handful fresh basil leaves, roughly chopped
Handful fresh cilantro leaves, roughly chopped
Smoked cheese for topping
Hard, aged cheese for topping

1. Soak the chickpeas before you cook them. To do this, cover them with water by an inch, and let them sit for 3-10 hours. If you don't have that much time, do what I did. Cover them with water, to start.

Bring to a boil. Let it boil for 5 minutes, and then take the pan off the heat. The chickpeas have already begun to take in water.



Cover it, and let it sit for an hour. It's still an hour, but it beats 10 hours, right? After they've soaked they should have swollen a bit more.



Drain them and re-cover them with water by an inch or two. Bring to a simmer, partially cover the pan, and let them cook for an hour or more, depending on their age. Mine were old and took 3 hours. I didn't eat until 11pm.

2. Meanwhile, though, you may prepare the other ingredients for the stew. Garlic needs to be smashed and roughly chopped. Onions need to be sliced. Celery needs to be cut into bits, and set aside with the onions, but separate from the garlic. You can do this however you see fit, but this is my method.



3. And now you can cube the squash and potatoes. Some people like theirs peeled, but I don't know why. It's not like the peel tastes bad, or gets in the way, or is ugly. It has nutritional value, and adds fiber. And it will take you twice as long to prepare your vegetables if you peel them. But suit yourself.

I tried to cut the squash into 1/2-inch cubes and the potatoes into 3/4-inch chunks. To simplify things, I cooked them together, and potato cooks fast; I didn't want it to cook faster than the squash and then fall apart. Plus, with all the stirring I knew I was going to be doing, I didn't want the potato to completely disappear into mush, so I thought it had ought to start out in larger chunks than did the squash.



4. Once your starchies (read: potatoes and squash) are cubed, you can cook them. You will be cooking them in water - the very water that will become your soup water. I used filtered water, because I want to believe that it makes the tap water of Phoenix taste acceptable. It doesn't, but who can afford that much bottled water? And who wants to waste that much plastic?

Anyway, cover your potatoes and squash with water in a large pot. Maybe a half an inch to spare. Add a fat pinch of sea salt and bring to a gentle boil. A hearty simmer, if you will.



5. Let them simmer for 20-30 minutes, until both squash and potatoes are cooked but not mushy. I believe the term is "fork-tender," but I don't really like it. It seems fleeting and faddish.

The water will look slightly orange and cloudy, and that's OK.



Set the pot aside and bring out a frying pan. Or, if you have more than one large burner, as I do not, you can bring out the frying pan while the stockpot is cooking the starchies. It's all up to you.

Add some oil to your pan, over medium heat. When it heats up properly, add the celery and onion that you set aside earlier.



Stir it up good, and continue to do so for about 3 minutes. Maybe 5. Definitely not 4.



6. Stir until the celery is popping and the onion is limp and threatening to brown if you stop stirring. (If it does brown, I don't see what the big deal is. Mine always does when I stop stirring to take a picture, and I haven't suffered from it yet.)



Toss in the garlic, spices, and oregano. Stir that up and keep at it. The moment you see the spices stick to the pan and start to smell amazing on the cusp of burnt, douse it with some red wine vinegar. Or maybe wine; I haven't tried that. It'll hiss at you something fierce. Respond by dumping the entire can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes into the pan and mixing the whole shebang together. That oughta hush things up.





7. Now everything will be coming together. Take the frying pan off the burner and return the stockpot with the starchies. Keep the heat on it - medium is fine - while you add things. You can add spinach and corn now. Stir it gently to distribute everything, but try not to pulverize the potatoes in the process.



You can also drain, rinse, and add the chickpeas to the stockpot, assuming they've cooked by this point. Add the tomato mixture.

This would be where a wand blender comes in very handy. To thicken the stew so it's not just chunky seasoned water, I used the wand blender to blend just a little bit of the contents of the stockpot. Most things were left intact, but enough squash and potatoes and onions and spinach got pureed that the stew developed a really hearty base. Desirable in a stew.

Season it with sea salt - and really, you need a fair amount for it to not be bland and tasteless. Just keep adding a little bit and tasting until you get the right amount. If the stew tastes like hot water, add more salt! And Tabasco sauce, of course. Just ploonk a bunch in until you get the right amount of zip.



8. You can take the (hopefully simmering) stew off of the heat, now, and stir in the chopped fresh herbs.



Bowl it up, grate on some cheese, and eat your heart out.

Despite the lengthy ingredient list, this is not an expensive stew. It uses no broth, no cream or butter, and I had at least 75% of the contents in my pantry/refrigerator already. It is a great way to use things you don't know what to do with.

Let me tell you right now, the stew was really good. It may be a temptation (at least, it was for me) to serve it over rice or some other kind of grain, but I would advise resistance to this particular hankering. Most of the calories (although they are few) that come from this stew are carbohydrate calories; you don't need more added from a grain, even a whole one. I would be intrigued, however, to try this stew ladled on a piece of sturdy white fish (cod or halibut, perhaps). It may compliment nicely.

Of course, you are welcome to do what I did and simply enjoy a bowl by itself, as 11pm is rather late to be eating a large meal.




(Oh, and I'm still on the fence about this whole video thing. My arms are really beefy. And it took me 8 hours to edit all this stuff and make an entry.)