Iberia · Volume 08, The Sherry Triangle and the Kitchen Al-Andalus Left Behind
Espinacas con Garbanzos
Seville
Illustration
- Time
- 4 hours
- Researched
- Researched from 194 sources in the brief
The chickpeas and spinach are bound with a majado, a pounded paste typically of bread, garlic, cumin and often a little sherry vinegar and pimentón, cooked into the spinach over low heat for an extended time before the chickpeas go in for a final short spell. El Rinconcillo, a Seville bar dated to the seventeenth century, is repeatedly cited as a historic house for this dish. The Arab introduction of spinach to Iberia, commonly dated to the eleventh century in the sourcing behind this chapter, is repeated widely but not traced here to a primary agricultural history source, and is stated with that caveat rather than as settled fact.
As tradition built it
Serves 4. About 4 hours, largely unattended.
Ingredients
- 400 g dried chickpeas, soaked overnight
- 500 g spinach, washed
- 2 garlic cloves
- 50 g day-old bread
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tbsp sweet paprika
- 2 tbsp sherry vinegar
- to taste olive oil, salt
Method
- Cook the soaked chickpeas in fresh water until tender, timing depends on the chickpea, but budget a good hour or more, and set aside with their cooking liquid.
- In a large pot, wilt the spinach down with a little olive oil.
- Pound the garlic, bread, cumin and paprika to a paste in a mortar, loosened with a little of the chickpea cooking liquid and the sherry vinegar.
- Stir the paste into the spinach, and cook over very low heat for around 4 hours, topping up with chickpea liquid as needed, until the spinach has broken down into a deep, savoury base.
- Add the drained chickpeas for a final 20 minutes, to warm through and absorb the flavour, then adjust seasoning and serve.
What a modern chef changes
The long cook respected, the paste's own flavour intensified.
Rung 4, applied to a paste rather than a sherry reduction
Method
- Toast the cumin and lightly toast the bread before pounding the majado, for a rounder, deeper base flavour than the raw ingredients give straight into the mortar.
- Cook the spinach base sous vide at a low, controlled temperature for the full four hours, rather than on the hob, removing any risk of catching or drying out over an unattended low simmer.
- Finish with a spoonful of the sherry reduction from the rung above, worked through at the very end, adding a note of concentrated depth the vinegar alone does not supply.