8 May 2005: Chickpeas and greens

A great deal of tonight's dinner comes from the ever-excellent The Hungry Tiger. I knew I wanted to make the chickpeas and greens with garlicky, lemony yoghurt as soon as I read Redfox's recipe last year; I can't quite believe that it's taken me this long to get around to doing so. The impetus to make it finally came when I saw the piles of lovely mature but still tender spinach at the Temple Bar markets yesterday, and bought a bag full for just a euro.

We spent a couple of hours today at Dun Laoghaire, walking out along the east pier in brilliant sunshine, then running back in to shore when the sky blackened in a matter of minutes and hail thundered down. Arriving home still slightly damp, we dried off and then pottered around the kitchen for an hour or so producing a highly satisfying meal of the spinach and chickpeas with yoghurt, alongside aubergine stew and couscous with pine nuts.

Yoghurt with garlic and lemon
Mix together a cup of thick Greek yoghurt, two large cloves of garlic, crushed, the juice of one lemon, and a pinch of salt. Leave to mellow in the fridge for an hour or two.

Spinach with chickpeas

olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

3 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 heaped teaspoon ground coriander

1 large bunch mature spinach (or other greens), stemmed and roughly chopped

250 g cooked chickpeas

sea salt and black pepper

a pinch of chilli flakes

Heat some olive oil in a large pan, add the onion and cook over very low heat for 20-30 minutes until it is very soft and sweet. Add the garlic and cook another few minutes, then turn up the heat to medium and add the coriander and the chopped spinach. Turn the spinach as it cooks down. Add the chickpeas, salt and pepper, and chilli flakes, and continue to cook until the chickpeas are warmed through and any additional liquid has evaporated.

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