Dinner Tonight: Chickpea Bruschetta
As the summer swelter begins to arrive, I'm sometimes as adverse to cooking dinner as I am to wearing wool socks. There are just some days when actually contributing to the amount of heat in the house seems like absolute madness. These are the times when room-temperature dishes like these bruschetta-style recipe are the sanest thing there is.
If you've ever eaten at Mario Batali's restaurant Babbo in Greenwich Village, you might remember this dish from the start of your meal, when it was brought out in a little dish as an amuse-bouche while you scanned the menu.
It's a remarkably flavorful concoction, one of those where it's hard to trace each ingredient back. You get a hint of rosemary, but it doesn't dominate, and despite the olive paste there's little taste of olive. It's sort of the way spices work in a curry, disappearing into a married whole.
About the author: Blake Royer founded The Paupered Chef with Nick Kindelsperger, where he writes about food and occasional travels. He is currently living for the year in Tartu, Estonia.
Chickpea Bruschetta
- serves 2 -
Adapted from foodnetwork.com
Ingredients
1 cup cooked or canned chickpeas
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons black olive paste
2 tablespoons good-quality balsamic vinegar
1/2 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon finely chopped fresh rosemary
2 tablespoons fresh basil leaves, finely shredded.
1 garlic clove, or coarsley chopped
Thick crusty bread
Procedure
1. Mix all ingredients together. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Allow to marinate for at least 20 minutes, preferably longer.
2. Toast the bread or grill it for more dramatic presentation. Spoon mixture on bread, drizzle with olive oil, and serve.
View other entries from Dinner Tonight.
Add a comment:
Previewing your comment:
HTML Hints
Some HTML is OK: <a href="URL">link</a>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>em</em>
Comment Guidelines
Post whatever you want, just keep it seriously about eats, seriously. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more at our Comment Policy page.
If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.
10 Comments:
I had this at the restaurant 3 weeks ago and I'm still thinking about it. I'm still dreaming about the whole meal...cannot wait to return.
bessfour at 5:11PM on 06/23/09
this looks like a delicious dish that would drive alton brown crazy. The reason: putting little marble-shaped objects on a semi-rigid piece of bread. you'll have them falling everywhere! is there some kind of culinary trick to beating this? for example, mashing the chickpeas into a kind of rustic hummus so you still get nice chunks, but they're suspended in a tacky paste that adheres them to the bread?
mr guy at 5:35PM on 06/23/09
This looks so, so good. I'm a chickpea freak and I definitely don't need to be standing over the stove in triple digit heat.
meleyna at 5:38PM on 06/23/09
Just a tip-
It's helpful to slightly mash to chickpeas slightly so the topping doesn't roll off the bread.
The recipe sounds delicious. Mmmmm....
CJ McD at 6:02PM on 06/23/09
Loved my meal at Babbo but I have to say that as a non-olive eater I did find the olive taste to somewhat overwhelm other flavours.
lexophile at 7:46PM on 06/23/09
yum, this sounds great - what a nice spin on bruschetta. thanks for the tip of smooshing the chickpeas to keep them from rolling off!
nithya at hungrydesi at 10:06PM on 06/23/09
Saving this for when it (hopefully) gets hot out and we don't feel like cooking--this and a salad would be heaven!
ElizabethS at 10:35PM on 06/23/09
Is black olive paste something people just buy? or make at home? (similar to a tapenade?) I haven't done much research, just a curiosity on my part....
engmcmuffin at 9:42AM on 06/24/09
God I hate chickpeas. Their crumbly texture is just awful.
Trilby at 10:09AM on 06/24/09
I find that if you're using good, organic canned beans or boiling your own, the texture is much, much better.
meleyna at 2:08AM on 06/26/09