A Moorish Lunch Special

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Adding in the Vinagre de Jerez

Today’s lunch bunch meal was “Moorish Stew.” This possibility sounded so promising, since we’d been a bit overwhelmed with soups as of late. But still, Charlie and I had our trepidations. We looked at the list of ingredients, and it looked as if the garlic/bread mash never made it into the crockpot. So for four hours, the stew was lacking some key ingredients.

Overall, the final result was strong. However, let me state up front, you really have to stick to the recipe as you see it below. No foolin’ around with ingredients, either add them all or just make something else! And for godssakes, please do not do what I did and exclude the vinegar until the end. It actually seems to belong in the cooking of the dish. I still have my doubts, but…no doubt it would have been more well-rounded with the vinegar in from the start.

MOORISH STEW

Serves: 14

Ingredients

1 quart dried garbanzos (chickpeas)

Vegetable Stock for boiling chickpeas

7 T Spanish extra-virgin oil

21 garlic cloves, peeled

1/2 lb. sliced white bread with crusts removed

7 T pimentón/smoked paprika  (N.B., this seemed like a lot of smoked paprika, so we started out w/about 3 T and added more as it appeared we needed to).

12-15 strands of Spanish saffron threads

7 T Vinagre de Jerez (Spanish Sherry Vinegar)

2 lb. baby spinach washed and chopped (julienned ribbons would work best)

3 ½ t ground cumin

Pepper to taste

Crockpot and Single Serving Over Rice

Cooking Tips

• Chickpeas may take a long time to boil. So it’s a good idea to soak them overnight before cooking. The next day, drain and rinse them. Add more water and proceed to boil until tender leaving ½ inch of water in the pan. If you use a crockpot/slow cooker, you can simply place all the ingredients in at once, leaving out the spinach and cumin until the last hour of cooking.
• If you don’t have time to cook, use 3 cups chickpeas from a can or jar adding more water before you cook the spinach or there is not enough in the jar.
• We added in the sherry vinegar at the end, so the soup didn’t cook for hours in vinegar. That may or may not have been a wise idea, but since Vinagre de Jerez is so potent, it seemed better to be safe than sorry. Were I to do this again, I’d just follow the directions.

Vinagre de Jerez and the Ol' Crock

Directions

1. Place all ingredients into your slowcooker, except the spinach and cumin.

2. Separately, heat the olive oil in a small sauté pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook until browned, about three minutes. Remove the garlic from the pan and set aside.

2. Add the bread and brown it in both sides—about one minute for each side. Remove the bread from the pan and set aside.

3. Remove the pan from the heat and let it cool. Add pimentón and saffron to the pan and immediately add sherry vinegar to prevent the pimentón from burning. Remove the pan from the heat.

4. In a mortar, smash garlic and bread to make a thick paste. Bring the chickpeas back to low boil. Add spinach, cumin, and the garlic-bread paste simmering for about 5 minutes. If you are doing this in a crockpot/slow cooker, add this in in the last 30 minutes to an hour prior to serving. That way the soup doesn’t become a spinach salad with cumin and garbanzo beans!

Season with pepper and serve.

Hardboiled Egg Topping

- See more at: http://www.alunchboxblog.com/moorish-lunch-bunch-stew/?preview=true&preview_id=2268&preview_nonce=1d716ee94a#sthash.xwomLBwu.dpuf