Tapas: Spanish Chickpea-Chorizo Stew

Serious Eats did a feature a few weeks ago on tapas dishes that are easy to make and involve only a few ingredients.  I loved the idea, and got right to making three of the dishes for a fantastic dinner.  One word of warning - the yield on some of these is funny if you're making them as a dinner rather than as appetizers, as you'd expect.  All say they'll serve 4-6 as an appetizer, but even with doubling all three recipes, it wasn't quite enough for six for dinner.  (Luckily I had some of Dorie's magical Florida Pie in the freezer for dessert, so that filled everyone up!)  Other than that, though, all the recipes were super flavorful and delicious.  I made chickpea-chorizo stew (pictured below), as well as Escalivada Catalana (Catalan-style roasted veggies served with bread) and cauliflower with smoked paprika, both of which I'll post later this week. 

 The chorizo-chickpea stew was fantastic, and it was amazing how much flavor you could get out of so few ingredients!  The recipe recommends cured chorizo, a sort I don't think I'd ever used before.  I usually buy the chorizo they have at the meat counter, which I believe is smoked but still needs to be refrigerated.  The cured sort is more like a hard salami that doesn't need to be refrigerated.  It introduced a great new flavor that I hadn't had before, and also added luscious richness to the stew.  Yum!  The best part about this dish (as well as the other tapas dishes I tried) is that they're fairly easy to pull together, so you really can make three or four of them in an evening without going crazy!  The variety makes for a nice dinner, since I usually don't make this many separate dishes. 

Spanish Chickpea-Chorizo Stew (adapted from Serious Eats, original recipe here)
Serves 4-6 as an appetizer, or double the recipe to serve 4-5 for dinner as part of a multi-dish meal.

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
4 ounces dry-cured Spanish style chorizo, cut into ¼-inch slices
1 medium onion, finely sliced
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 (14.4 ounce) can cooked chickpeas, undrained
kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper


Heat olive oil in 10-inch heavy-bottomed stainless steel skillet over medium heat until shimmering. Add chorizo and cook, stirring frequently until some fat renders and the sausage is starting to brown, about 10 minutes. Add the onion and cook, stirring frequently, until onion is fully softened but not browning, 5-8 minutes. Add the tomato paste and cook, stirring constantly, until paste begins to fry, about 2 minutes. Add chickpeas, stir to combine, bring to a simmer, reduce heat to low, and reduce until stew-like consistency is reached, about 10 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.