Pasta with chickpeas and spinach
Pasta with chickpeas and spinach came about because I could barely walk. Not the most felicitous of culinary circumstances, but there you are. One never knows where a good dish will come from.
Your hostess has a bursitic knee, long treated with cortisone shots. Last week the doctor decided further imaging was necessary, so instead of the expected hit of steroid, yours truly found herself sliding into a MRI.
In addition to being freezing cold, MRIs are loud. One is not to move, sniffle, or even breathe too deeply.
And medical personnel wonder why people have panic attacks in MRIs. Or associate them with coffins. Hm. No idea.
(These photographs are of pluots, which are hybrid plum/apricots. They are much prettier than magnetic resonance imaging machines. Or bursitic knees.)
Your hostess was sent home, where she descended into the medical hell known as “awaiting results.” After four days of silence, she kicked up (with one leg, the other hurting too much) the merest tantrum. This got her the cortisone shot she wanted to begin with.
The MRI results proved inconclusive. The doctors are mystified.
—
During all this wondering, waiting, and worrying about a silly little thing that may or may not add up to nothing, I still had to cook. Sure, we could have ordered in, but not cooking was too depressing to contemplate.
So, pasta with chickpeas and spinach. It’s good even if you don’t have bursitis. The first time I made it, three slices of salami were hanging around the fridge, needing using up, so I sliced them thinly and tossed them into the pot.
Serious cooks tell you canned chickpeas are a foodie sin. Dried chickpeas are the only way to fly. One is sternly advised to acquire said dried chickpeas either from bulk bins or certain upscale bean purveyors, whose followers are cultlike in their devotion.
Doubtless these serious cooks and cultlike followers are on to something. But when you can barely stand, and for comic relief have a husband in a wheelchair (who cannot stand at all), canned chickpeas will suffice. Console yourself with organic canned chickpeas, or spend extra money on fancy Italian chickpeas in pretty glass jars.
On the subject of shameful cooking shortcuts, can we discuss spinach? There’s a Richard Olney recipe calling for washing spinach “in many waters.” I could wash spinach in a lake and it would still be gritty. So I buy the prewashed organic stuff.
I’ve made pasta with chickpeas and spinach with Capricci (pictured) and Gemelli pastas, both purchased at a local Italian market. Orechiette or a tubular pasta would also work nicely.
These look like Fruit Loops to me. (American children’s breakfast cereal.)
Much as I am loathe to use the term “umami”–like my knee, it’s suffering from overuse–it’s the best descriptor for what a little tomato paste and a pinch of hot pepper flakes bring to the party.
The amounts here served two people with moderate appetites with enough left over for one lunch. Feel free to scale upward, but follow the late, great Marcella Hazan’s wise counsel: don’t cook more than two pounds of pasta in a single pot. As a friend and fine cook once said to me, “something weird happens to the food.”
On that note of wisdom, the recipe.
Pasta with Chickpeas and Spinach
yield: 2-3 servings
preparation time: 20-25 minutes
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large garlic clove, smashed, peeled, and minced
1 ounce/28 g salami or ham, thinly sliced (optional, see notes)
12-15 ounces/360-425g can or jar chickpeas
pinch hot pepper flakes (optional)
2 teaspoons tomato paste
1 cup/235 ml homemade or low salt chicken broth (ideally; see notes for substitutes)
10 ounces/150 g fresh spinach, well washed
salt and pepper
16 ounces/2 cups/500 g Capricci, Gemelli, Orecchiette or other tubular dried pasta
sea or kosher salt
additional olive oil, for the finished dish
parmesan cheese, for the finished dish
You will need a measuring cup, a colander, a large pasta pot, and a wide frying or sauté pan to make this recipe.
Set the sauté pan over medium low heat. Pour in enough olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan generously. Add the garlic and salami or ham if using. Allow to soften.
While garlic cooks, drain the chickpeas in the colander. Rinse under running water, then add to the pan. Stir.
Add tomato paste and stir to incorporate. Add the broth or other liquid and turn heat up a bit; you want a gentle bare simmer. Mixture should not boil.
Add the hot pepper flakes, if using.
Stir in spinach. It will cook down amazingly. Stir occasionally, turning down heat if necessary.
Cook vegetable/chickpea mixture until spinach cooks down, about four minutes. Turn burner down to lowest possible heat, keeping sauce warm while you make the pasta.
Fill the large pot with plenty of water–Marcella Hazan advises four quarts (4L) to a pound of pasta. Again quoting Hazan, add at least 1 and 1/2 tablespoons Kosher or sea salt to the water. Place on a burner and crank up the heat.
When the water reaches a full boil, add the pasta. Stir, so it doesn’t stick.
Cook pasta until al dente, or cooked to your taste.
Before straining pasta, carefully dip the measuring cup into the pan, reserving about 4 ounces/118 ml of the pasta cooking water. If your pasta or chickpea/spinach sauce is a bit dry, a little of this starchy water will pull the dish together.
Strain pasta, rapidly returning it to your pasta pot.
You now have two choices:
1. Be a prole. Dump pan of sauce directly into the pasta, stir everything together, and taste for seasoning. Add a little olive oil and/or pasta water if necessary. Congratulate yourself while pouring a bourbon. Ice down your purple knee.
or
2. Be civilized. Taste for seasoning; then add olive oil and/pasta water if necessary. Turn the pasta into waiting bowls, which you’ve remembered to heat in a low oven. Gently ladle the sauce over pasta. Pour each diner a glass of Barolo, which you have decanted at least an hour earlier, into appropriate stemware. Discreetly swallow two ibruprofen, which of course will completely eradicate the minor joint pain you suffer from running all those fund-raising marathons.
Either way, serve pasta with Parmesan cheese, crusty bread, and a green salad (if you’re being healthy).
Pasta with chickpeas and spinach will keep, refrigerated, about three days.
Notes:
I added three thinly sliced pieces of Capocollo, a spicy salami, to the dish. Feel free to add another kind of ham, some sliced cooked chicken, or no meat at all.
No chicken broth? Low salt vegetable broth or water will work. Or mix white wine with broth.
I want to express my bottomless thanks to writer Fiona Beckett, who had no way of knowing how awful I felt was when she regrammed the photograph below on October 12th, along with some incredibly kind words. I do my utmost to be lighthearted about life with collagen disease, but last week was grim. Thank you, Ms. Beckett, and thank you to everyone who followed me as a result. This means more than I can possibly express.
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