Fideos with Chickpeas (From The Complete Plant Based Cookbook by America’s Test Kitchen)

    This is the pasta dish that you are going to want to try! I have never heard of Fideos with chickpeas before coming across it in The Complete Plant Based Cookbook. The cookbook explains that fideos is a traditional Spanish dish that involves breaking noodles into small lengths and cooking it with seafood and chorizo. This recipe takes that traditional style dish and makes it vegan.

    The most interesting part of the dish is how the noodles are toasted. I broke up spaghetti into small lengths. I tossed that pasta with oil in a skillet until it started to brown. I have never toasted pasta or even heard of toasting pasta. This proved to be an important step because of the flavor that started to come out of the pasta because of toasting it. Once the pasta was toasted, I removed it from the pan and began putting together the sauce. I sautéed an onion, followed that with the diced tomatoes, garlic and paprika. I added the pasta back into the sauce to cook. I added water, chickpeas, wine, pepper, reserved juices from the tomatoes, salt, and pepper.

    After the dish was all put together, it goes into the oven under the broiler until the top layer gets crispy. I let it cool slightly before sprinkling it with parsley and serving with lemon. This dish is very flavorful and hearty. I thought this was delicious and I would definitely make it again!