Chicken, Chickpeas and Chorizo

I can’t remember how we decided on chickpeas, but I do remember that after we decided we then thought that we didn’t have any. So I checked in the cupboard and we did have them, so that was lucky and we soaked some of them yesterday ready for today. We made this up as we went along and the ch-ch-ch in the title was quite accidental. It has a Spanish influence to it but doesn’t follow any particular recipe. Turned out very well though, so we’re putting the recipe down here in case we want to cook it again:

10cm cooking chorizo, peeled and sliced
1 small white onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic
half red pepper, finely chopped
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp dried thyme
1 stick celery, finely chopped
1 small to medium carrot, finely chopped
1 litre chicken stock
250g chickpeas, soaked overnight
250ml white wine
1 tin of tomatoes (440g)
4 chicken thighs, skinned and trimmed of fat
half a small head of cabbage, finely sliced

Heat a large saucepan and add the sliced chorizo, along with just a dash of olive oil. Stir and fry for a few minutes until the lovely orange oil has cooked out. Add the onion, garlic and red pepper and stir fry for about 5 minutes. Add the celery, carrot, paprika and thyme and fry for another few minutes. Then add the soaked chickpeas and stir well, coating them in the oil and fried vegetables. Add the wine and let the alcohol boil off for a few minutes, then add the tomatoes and stock (it needs to cover the chickpeas, so add some more if this is not enough), bring to the boil and simmer for 45 minutes with the lid on.

After the 45 minutes, add the chicken thighs, stir them in and cook for another 45 minutes. Then remove the chicken thighs, take the meat off the bones and slice / shred if needed and return the meat to the pot, discarding the bones. Add the sliced cabbage and put the lid back on and cook until the cabbage is just done. Season with black pepper and salt if needed. Serve. Some crusty bread would have been good to mop up the juices, but we didn’t have any so we used a spoon the eat the sauce. Delicious. And there are leftovers to eat during the week too.