You certainly know the Cacciucco Livornese recipe made with fish…well this is a nice variation on the theme made with chickpeas. In addition to being a very good recipe and a nutricious one, it also is an excellent vegan alternative too. However, the origins of this are not vegan, but as it always goes in Tuscan cooking, they are to be found in the poorer tradition of this region, when one onion, few tomatoes, few tablespoons of oil, one anchovy and some beat leaves had to become the sustaining energy to work hard in the Tuscan country fields. And again, another praise to the ingenuity of the chefs of necessity that lived the past.
Ingredients:
- 300 grams of dry chickpeas
- 200 grams of green beat leaves
- 50 grams of extra virgin olive oil
- one large onion (red, white, golden..)
- one salt anchovy
- tomato sauce
- one garlic clove
- bread crutons
- grated pecorino cheese
- salt
- pepper
Preparation:
Set the chickpeas in abundant cold and salted water and let hydrate for 24 hours. Then clean the green beats, wash them and cook them with the lid on with the only water that’s left on them after washing.
If you have a terracotta pan use that, otherwise a regular pan will do. In this pan put the olive oil, and gently fry the thinly sliced onion, the whole garlic clove and the washed and cleaned anchovy. Use the fork to mix the anchovy in until it dissolves then add the chickpeas (after drainiing them) adding salt and pepper to taste. Then add the beats and cover all up with cold or warm water where you have previously mixed in a tablespoon of tomato sauce. Cover with the lid and cook the chickpeas for 4 hours at slow boiling heat without ever lifting the lid.
TO prepare the bread crutons, either toast them in the oven or fry them in oil. Set them at the bottom of each serving bowl, then pour the chickpeas and the broth on top of the crutons. Now add a handful of grated pecorino cheese and serve hot. Buon appetito!
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