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SPANISH CHICKPEA AND RED PEPPER STEW

by in Recipes February 18, 2019

This dish is very versatile as at each stage you have a new dish to use in different ways.  After step one, you have a lovely warm or cold salad to go with other things.  After step two, you have a lovely flavoursome stew to serve with rice, quinoa, potato or pasta.  Both these dishes are gluten free and dairy free.  Step three you have a baked dish with the addition of chopped Feta Cheese, which is now gluten free but obviously not dairy free.  However as a lot more people seem to be reacting to cow’s milk/cheese but are fine with sheep or goats cheese, then this is still a delicious dish for them (just check the label on your Feta that it is 100% sheep’s cheese with no additional cows cheese  –  sometimes they are mixed!!)

It has lovely Spanish flavours with the addition of the two types of Smoked Paprika  –  like Chorizo without the meat!!!!  I bought these two tins of Paprika in San Sebastian when I was there last September.  I love buying Herbs and Spices when I am away.

This is also very quick to make, I made it up to step three in 15 minutes.

  • 2 small Onions, finely diced
  • splash of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons of Hot Smoked Paprika
  • 1 teaspoon of Sweet Smoked Paprika
  • 1 teaspoon of Origano
  • 6 Red Peppers (I used the long skinny ones) sliced
  • 1 bottle/can/packet of cooked Chickpeas, drained and rinsed
  • 2 tubs of Roast Tomato Sauce (defrosted from my freezer – I made this over the Summer with the tomatoes from my tunnel – recipe is in balancednutrition.ie  –  you could use some passata or a tin of peeled cherry tomatoes or even a good quality bought fresh tomato sauce for pasta instead)
  • 1 packet of Feta Cheese, cut into cubes

Because I made the Tomato Sauce and seasoned it at the time, I did not need to add any more Salt and Pepper.  But if you are using tinned tomatoes or passata, you will need to adjust the seasoning to your taste, so you will need to add Salt, Pepper and maybe a little Sugar if the tomatoes are a bit acidic.  You might even want to use another teaspoon of Oregano.  Adjust it to your liking.

Step One:  Heat a deep sided frying pan and once it is hot add the Extra Virgin Olive Oil and add the diced Onions straight away.  You don’t want your good EVOO to get too hot, so putting the onions in straight away, stops this from happening.  Saute them gently until they are transparent.

Put in the two types of Smoked Paprika and the Origano and stir around until the powders have cooked and incorporated into the Oil and the Onions.

Add the sliced Red Peppers and on a reasonably high heat, cook stirring every now and again, you want them to cook but not get too soft.

Add the drained Chickpeas and mix together.  This is the end of Step One!

 

 

 

Step Two:  Add the Tomato Sauce and get to a gentle simmer.  

That is it, Step Two done.

 

 

 

 

Step Three:  Preheat your oven to 200 degrees.  Put some of the chopped Feta on the bottom of an oven proof dish, spoon the Stew over the top and then top with the rest of the Feta Cheese.

Place in the hot oven for 20 minutes or until the Feta Cheese on top is nicely browned.

I served this with some cooked Brown Rice.  Ideally a nice sprinkling of chopped Parsley would be nice over the top, but unfortunately I did not have any!!!

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