A Long and Messy Business. Rowley Leigh

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      trapped. If you could allow more people, what was wrong

      with less? He was, momentarily, discombobulated.

      February can be tough going. There is less fresh food in

      the traditional seasonal calendar. I know that does not

      matter much to the average supermarket shopper but to

      those of us who look forward to the treats each season

      brings, February is pretty much hard tack. There are

      exceptions, such as the rhubarb featured below, but this

      month marks the low point of the growing year, when

      nothing has started to crop and stores are getting low.

      No wonder we begin Lent now.

      When times are tough, the cook gets cooking. The

      paucity of ingredients requires careful handling. You

      will need to have a good storecupboard. And you can

      cheat a bit. I know red peppers are hardly winter food

      but just occasionally you can go off piste. Some of these

      recipes, like the first one, are exercises in minimalism,

      dishes that require a bit of precision and a lot of

      restraint. When less is more, in fact.

      An Exercise in Minimalism

      Pasta e Ceci

      Soups are an exercise in minimalism. It is what you leave

      out that is important. I have long argued that a good thing

      to omit is stock – unless, of course, it is the key component:

      vegetable soups and purées have a purer, cleaner flavour

      when there is no stock involved. Old-fashioned cream

      soups made from simple vegetables – celery, carrot,

      cauliflower, for example – have a delicacy and definition

      that many modern combinations lack. Many of the best

      soups are so simple not just by virtue of a sense of

      aesthetic purity, but also as a result of poverty.

      Proper peasant soups are meals, not the first act of

      a banquet. Sometimes a meat or chicken broth will be

      fortified with bread, pasta, vegetables or dumplings.

      Sometimes there is no broth but simply water: with an

      egg and garlic in the Languedoc; beans and not much else

      in Tuscany; or carrots, water and rice in Northern France.

      However, these simple soups do not lack variety or

      interest – just look what they do with chickpeas in Italy.

      In Calabria, a chickpea soup will be chickpeas and

      tomato. A little pork fat or bacon might be introduced in

      some areas, while in others pasta is cooked in the soup.

      Further north, in Rome, anchovies form part of the

      aromatic base alongside garlic and rosemary before the

      chickpeas, tomato purée and a little macaroni are added.

      In Tuscany, the soup is rarely cooked without a substantial

      dose of diced pancetta and a soffritto of carrot, celery and

      onion. By the time you reach Milan, chickpea soup has

      become positively sybaritic, with a good quantity of

      pancetta and vegetables, a shredded pig’s head, a quantity

      of butter and fresh herbs all enriching the mix. Each of

      these soups is a deep, tomato homage to the chickpea.

      When Alastair Little started running a cooking school

      in Orvieto, he immersed himself in the gastronomic

      culture and was not seen for months. When he resurfaced,

      his greatest enthusiasm was for this chickpea soup, a

      richly flavoured Tuscan version. At the time I confess I was

      a little puzzled: although a good dish, it was, in the end,

      just a simple soup. I was wrong. It is a remarkably subtle

      and satisfying dish, and getting the balance of flavours and

      the cooking of the pasta just right does require a small

      degree of concentration. This is a simple version with no

      meat at all, perfect for these Lenten days.

      47

      February

      PASTA E CECI

      Cooking the chickpeas yourself is preferable both

      economically and on grounds of taste, but if you want to

      make this a storecupboard standby there are excellent

      bottled or tinned chickpeas available, which allow this recipe

      to be made in 25 minutes: you’ll need about 1kg (2lb 4oz).

      Serves six to eight.

      500g (1lb 2oz) dried

      chickpeas

      1 large red chilli

      a few sprigs of rosemary

      50ml (13⁄4fl oz) olive oil

      1 large onion, peeled and

      very finely chopped

      1 carrot, peeled and very

      finely chopped

      1 celery stick, very finely

      chopped

      3 garlic cloves, peeled and

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