White fish with chorizo, chickpeas and cider
One of my favorite cookbooks at the moment (I collect them so we have a few) is Perfect Plates in 5 Ingredients by John Whaite and recently we ate the chickpeas cooked with chorizo and cider, a marvelously savoury dish.
This evening I remembered reading in one of The Two Fat Ladies cookbooks (and I can’t find which one) mentioned cooking fish and pork products together, I think it might have been frying fish in lard. Having got a great fish box delivered this week, I stuck the two ideas together.
You will need
- 2 tins of chickpeas, drained. I used one tin of regular chickpeas and one of Kala Chana, the smaller, darker, nuttier variety
- 200g of chorizo diced into 1cm cubes
- 2 pieces of chunky white fish (I think ours was cod)
- 100ml of stock (I used beef because it was on hand)
- 200ml of dry cider
- A big handful of fresh parsley
Do
- Pop the chorizo in a pan with a lid on a high heat for a few minutes until it’s a bit crispy and the oil has started to run
- Add the chickpeas and sizzle for a few minutes
- Add the stock and cider, bubble up for a few minutes
- Add the fish on the top and half the parsley, pop a lid on and turn the heat down to a gentle bubble
- Once the fish is cooked though (maybe 5 minutes) you’re ready to go
- Top with the rest of the parsley
Result
The fish has steamed nicely and comes away in big flakes. The chickpeas have bite to them but are tender. The sharpness of the cider is a great foil to the oil of the chorizo. Deeply savoury, very satisfying.
A chunk of bread with salted butter would have been great to soak up some juices.
