Chickpeas a la vodka
The creamy, tangy, tomato and chickpea dish I make on repeat, and some exciting news in voice memo form
Well hello friends. It’s me, popping into your inbox again just in time for the weekend to share one of my favourite pantry recipes using chickpeas, and a bit of a catch up/exciting news that I’m explaining in the below voice note. Trust me when I say this chickpea number will set your pulse racing (sorry). On top of being a total flavour bomb, this recipe is a reliable, speedy, crowd-pleasing dish to have in your arsenal - and something that gets made on repeat in this house using Bold Beans’ amazing Queen Chickpeas, which are creamy and tender and just work so well. You can read more about why I bother with top quality chickpeas in this pantry sneak peak piece, along with a fab, exclusive subscriber discount for their range of premium pulses. And I promise this is not an ad, I am not sponsored or affiliated with Bold Beans, I just really rate and appreciate what they do, and love them for making it easy to source really great jars of well cooked, perfectly seasoned quality chickpeas and pulses. On that note, it’s worth sourcing good jarred chickpeas, or failing that, cooking some chickpeas (garbanzos for our N. American friends) from dry if you can, as they elevate this into something which I’ll happily cook for pals who might hang around for dinner unexpectedly - safe in the knowledge that I’ll usually have a jar of good chickpeas, some tomato puree and a bit of vodka in the cupboard.
This dish is inspired by the classic vodka rigatoni - something I first ate in New York on my very first trip there, amazed by how the vodka named but undetectable in the tomato sauce made for the silkiest, most intense and sexiest tomato sauce I’d tasted. Something about the addition of vodka just really opens up the flavours in this sauce: it’s miraculous, and if you want to refine it even more you could go to the trouble of blitzing up the tomato and onion sauce before you add in the chickpeas - though I tend not to bother as I like the heft they bring to the dish.
You can absolutely add pasta into the equation here, though I actually find the Queen Chickpeas bring just the right body, and I really love to serve them topped with roasted or charred veg: asparagus or, preferably tenderstem or broccoli, which brings a lovely hint of bitterness. I’ve also done them alongside roasted hispi or sweetheart cabbage, roasted cauli… you get the idea. The spicy-sweet, toasty maple and black pepper almonds are the crowning glory, bringing crunch, sweetness and the warm hum of black pepper. They are, in themselves, worth making for scattering on summer salads if not for this dish. I also love a very generous shower of Parmesan on top for a final flourish. Come to think of it, given how hot it’s supposedly going to be this weekend, you could - in theory - blitz up this chickpea and tomato situation, perhaps loosening with a bit more olive oil or water - to make a tangy, creamy tomato, saffron and chickpea dip, which you could then serve at room temp, or chilled with the charred broccoli and roasted nuts…
Paid subscribers will be unlocking the key to this game-changing chickpea recipe and my voice note, and if you happen to be reading this and are not yet a paid subscriber, perhaps it’s time to treat yourself to a membership to what I can only describe as my seasonally-shifting, interactive, ever-evolving cookbook. If you do, you’ll be able to enjoy the tried and tested recipe in this post, join in our wonderful A Lot On Her Plate community of joy-seeking, food-loving peeps, have access to our chats, special giveaways with brands I love, my travel guides and ENTIRE recipe archive, but more importantly, you’ll be encouraging and supporting the work that I do developing recipes and writing these recipes and newsletters. You’ll be a legend in my eyes. And all for less than a pound a month, if you subscribe for the year (though monthly subs are available).