Recipe Chickpea Pistou

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

I made a chickpea pistou last night which was excellent. possibly not the 'pulse' you were thinking on but I can't see why other pulses could not be used.

Ingredients
225g dried weight of chickpeas soaked overnight
8 cloves of garlic
50ml olive oil
2 onions chopped
2 large carrots chopped
2 stick of celery, finely chopped
2 red chilies deseeded and chopped
2tsp ground cumin
2tsp ground coriander
400ml dry white wine (or veg stock)
juice of 1 lemon
350g cherry tomatoes (though I think a tin will be fine personally)
fresh coriander
fresh flat leaf parsley

Method

1. cook the soaked chickpeas with 6 of the cloves of garlic crushed into the water, simmer for around 2 hours - top up water as needed. Chickpeas should be tender to very tender...
2. heat the oil in a large pan, add the onion, carrot & celery and cook for 10 mins.
3. add the chilli, cumin, ground coriander and cook for another 2 mins (or so)
4. add the stock/white wine and simmer for 5 mins
5. add the drained chickpeas, remaining cloves of garlic (crushed), lemon juice, tomatoes, coriander and parsley (both chopped) and season well.
6. stand for around an hour, then reheat and serve with pitta bread or something similar.

serves 4.

I added some 2tbsp tomato puree to add a touch more flavour because the cherry toms I used seemed bland. It also benefited from the juice of a 2nd lemon, but my lemons are very small at the moment. Plus I always add extra cumin & ground coriander because we like it - 3 heaped tsp of each. It was really yummy.

The recipe does indicate that if you don't want to use dried chickpeas 3 cans will suffice and that all of the garlic should go into the onion mixture.

 

[lizzief79]

I recently posted about things to do with chickpeas and this sounds really good. I will probably use tinned chickpeas and adapt the recipe a little to my taste. Sometimes I use less spice to serve my children and then ad a little more in for myself and my partner as e like a lot of spice.

 

[Food4thought]

This looks like something I want to try. I'm never sure quite how to use chickpeas apart from the usual recipes. I would probably use tinned tomatoes rather than fresh, vegetable stock instead of wine and my own selection of spices.

 

[Micheleteresa]

I am going to have to try this. I think my family would like this, so far only way I serve them chick peas is as a "tuna" sandwich alternative or in soups and stews.