How Italians Make Creamy Chickpea Pasta for Almost Nothing

Back to the food that looks after uses. Today I'm making something incredibly simple, satisfying, humble and also very very affordable and I'll be using just a handful of ingredients. Genuinely, if you take a look I've got a tin of chickpeas, some tomato puree, I will be using a couple of cloves of garlic, some rosemary and pasta. These are orecchiette which means small ears in Italian but you can use any short pasta. It doesn't take a long time to cook and it is very very creamy, a smoothing texture. So I've got a couple of cloves of garlic, I'm cooking for two people. I'll give them a gentle crush first using my knife. Rosemary, and here comes my very first tip, I'm chopping mine in tiny little pieces, almost like sand. Can you see? Look. And that is because I think it adds a tremendous amount of flavour to the dish. You can leave it whole and just cook the sprig with the olive oil and the garlic in a moment and then take it out if you like but I would recommend it. There are only a handful of ingredients and this is a key component in my view but you take it out if you wish. This is a one pot meal so ensure that your saucepan or pot you're using is big enough to hold your pasta and I'm going to add a generous amount of olive oil and I'll turn this on but on a medium setting. I'm going to add my garlic next and also my rosemary at the same time. Very important to leave the temperature on a medium setting and allow the flavour to build gently over two to three minutes. You want the garlic and the rosemary to release all of the flavour with the oil but if you find that your setting is too high just turn it down a little. Do not allow the garlic to get brown otherwise it will become bitter and it will not be very very nice to taste. And I can add my chickpeas next. I'm going to leave the water in my case because it's got all of that chickpeas flavour and it will make it even more peppery but I'm going to turn the temperature slowly up as I want the chickpeas to get the temperature relatively quickly now. If you want to drain the water by all means do that no problem you don't have to keep the water. More often than not if I'm cooking with chickpeas or beans or anything that comes in a tin I always use the water unless I'm making a salad for example for the very reason it's got that velvety texture and adds a degree of smoothness to your dish. If you have never tried before try once and you'll see what I mean and let me know what you think. So now that everything has reached temperature I'm going to add some tomato puree a good tablespoon. As I'm using orecchiette today and it's not a pasta I cook with very often I'm measuring 450 milliliters of water which I've just boiled. You can always add some more water later but I'll start with 450 milliliters for now and it goes in with the rest. Water is hot so obviously it will soon reach the boil. I'll place the lid on I'll turn the temperature down on medium once again and I will leave it to gently cook for 15 days or five minutes and by now your kitchen will smell like a mediterranean kitchen because the smell of the olive oil the garlic and the rosemary and the chickpeas will take over. So I'll see you in 15. One thing I always find interesting and fascinating about dishes like this is how much flavor people were able to extract in Sicily when money was short. If you think about it it's just a handful of ingredients but so simple and so delicious. I'm now removing about two thirds of the chickpeas and placing them inside a jug and also I'm going to pinch some of the liquid like this maybe three little spoons like this and this is a fairly modern thing by the way my mum or my nanny coming to that she would have not done this they would have just put pasta straight here but I think modern tests have changed and we like smoothness and silkiness so I'm going to blend this. I'll leave the rest to continue cooking and using a blender I'll just whizz away. There you can see I've made some chickpea cream. Now the pasta is over here I can put that in with the water sorry not the stock and yes this is another one pot meal so I'll be cooking the pasta alongside the chickpeas. This is because as I said before the starches will be collected in the sauce also the pasta will be absorbing a lot of the flavor from the sauce. You can if you want cook the pasta separately in hot water and then add it at the end but honestly this tastes a lot better. The one tip another tip is to not have the temperature too high again this is not like if you're boiling pasta with water you are gently allowing the pasta to collect that beautiful flavor from the chickpeas and the sauce at the same time as releasing the starches. In my case this will take about 10 minutes because orecchiette take that long but if you have to cook macaroni or conchiglia or anything else the likelihood is that it will take less. Just take a look at the packaging and follow the instructions. One thing I've learned to do by the way is to place the lid on and it will cook a little bit faster. I'm about a couple of minutes away from the pasta being cooked and I have realized that orecchiette do absorb quite a bit of water but before I add any more water I'm going to add my chickpeas which I have whisked earlier. I'm not sure if you can hear the noise hopefully you can if I get closer with my mic absolutely wonderful I love it so let's have a look let's have a look what the density is like yeah I might have to add a little water not a lot yeah just top it up so keep an eye but just enough to get the pasta to finish cooking I think that should be enough and I'll mix it out without the lid on so that I can regulate its consistency. Sometimes I watch the old video and I see people are using cream to make a dish creamy and you can see why this is food that looks after you. I've made a creamy dish look without using any cream but of course if you prefer yours to be more liquidy just add more water as I said you can adjust it accordingly and here is my final tip I'll turn this off and I'm going to remove it from the heat I will leave the lid on for about two minutes and this will do some magic. One last touch before I serve a little pepper assuming you like pepper quantities as always to taste and if you can see what has happened here beautiful and creamy just as I wanted it but of course before you finish a compulsory touch of olive oil at the very top which will complement the flavor why not you can also add a little rosemary at the top so that it brightens up the color slightly and it's ready of course you can also add some parmesan cheese or pecorino if you like in Italy up to you we are entering the area of personal choices I'm going to leave it as a vegan dish for me today clearly vegetarian if you're adding parmigiano but try like this because actually you get to really appreciate the true flavors of the chickpeas and the very basic and aligning ingredients which make this dish let's have a look as I said before it never fails to amaze me how simple a handful of ingredients can taste so delicious honestly so good hopefully you make it and if you do drop me a line and let me know what you think and keep the water from the chickpeas honestly make a big difference thank you for watching and buon appetito as always ciao