Jono & Jules do food & wine

Big mouthfuls of flavour with this somewhat unconventional pasta dish – Italians might like to avert their eyes! The capers steal the show in some ways so you really need to like these and the spicy, garlicky chickpeas are to die for. If this dish is wrong we don’t want to be right!

Wine Suggestion: We had a glass of the Domaine de la Chauviniere Muscadet sur lie which might not be the obvious choice but it worked. Fresh and light, but with great fruit and texture, we’d highly recommend this to match the vibrant, flavour packed dish.

Orecchiette cooked in chickpea & tomato sauce – serves 4

• 50ml olive oil, plus extra to serve
• 6 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
• 400g tin of chickpeas, drained and patted dry
• 2 tsp hot smoked paprika
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• ¾ tbsp tomato purée
• 40g parsley, leaves picked and roughly chopped
• 2 tsp lemon zest
• 4 tbsp baby capers
• 80g good quality green olives, pitted and roughly torn
• 250g cherry tomatoes
• 2 tsp caster sugar
• ½ tbsp caraway seeds, lightly toasted and crushed
• 250g dried orecchiette pasta
• 500ml vegetable stock

Put the first 6 ingredients along with 2 tsp of salt in a large sauté pan and fry gently over a medium heat for about 8 minutes, until the chickpeas are slightly crisp. Reserve about a third of the chickpeas to use as a garnish at the end.

Combine the parsley, lemon zest, capers and olives in a bowl, then add two-thirds of this to the pan with the cherry tomatoes, sugar and caraway seeds. Cook and stir for another 2 minutes.

Add the pasta and stock and bring to a simmer. Cover with a lid and cook over a medium heat for 12 minutes, undisturbed. Check the pasta is cooked and if not continue cooking for another minute or two.

Stir in the remaining parsley mixture, drizzle with 2 tbsp of olive oil and garnish with the reserved chickpeas and some black pepper.

(Original recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi in The Guardian)