Pasta e ceci

I have been meaning to cook this dish ever since a girl from work raved about this amazing dish that her husband (Ben) cooked for her. This is not a mistake. Her husband cooked this for her. In fact he cooks most nights. She raved about this dish saying it is not quiet a pasta and not really a soup!

 

Although technically this recipe is a pasta it is really more like a stew. It is from Jamie Oliver's book Jamie's Italy and he says it is a pasta like soup. The recipe only calls for 100g of pasta so I am going to call it a stew. Either way it is so delicious. Perfect for a cold winter night.

You start of by heating some olive oil in a pot and you saute the celery, onion and garlic for about 15 minutes on the lowest setting you can. You want them to soften but not colour.

Meanwhile thoroughly rinse the chickpeas in a colander.

After the onion mixture is soft add the chickpeas and the stock and bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer and leave for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes remove half the chickpeas and blend the remaining chickpeas (I used a hand blender), then return the while chickpeas to the pot with the mashed chickpeas and add the uncooked pasta.

Continue to cook until the pasta is done. This should take around 12 minutes, but keep tasting. If the mixture is getting too thick you can add some boiling water to loosen it.

Season with salt pepper.

Serve with chopped rosemary and parsley on top.

• 1 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 small onion, peeled and finely chopped
• 1 stick of celery, trimmed and finely chopped, plus celery leaves if available
• 1 clove of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
• Extra virgin olive oil
• 2 sprigs fresh rosemary, leaves picked and finely chopped
• 2 x 400g cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 3 cups chicken or vegetable stock
• 100g ditalini or other small soup pasta
• A good handful of parsley, leaves picked and roughly chopped
• Juice of half a lemon

II: 7.5