Guiso de Garbanzos Con Chorizo (Cuban Chickpea, Sausage and Pork Pot)

This is a simple, quick, Cuban dish. Chickpeas are married with smoked Spanish chorizo and pork through a fragrant tomato based Cuban creole sauce. If you use canned chickpeas you can make this stand alone dish in less than 30 minutes. You can prepare some rice, and while the rice is cooking make this dish, by the time your done you'll have steaming hot rice, and a flavorful filling stew to serve over it.

You can actually make this from scratch using dried chickpeas (about 1 lbs. which is 2 cups raw) by soaking the chickpeas over night, then draining and boiling them in water til tender, when tender drain well, and use them in this recipe :) however this will take longer to do and makes things more tedious.

Ingredients:
-1/4 cup lard or olive oil
-1/2 lbs. smoked pork ham or bacon/ salted pork or pork meat cut into 1/2 inch pieces
-2 small Spanish Chorizo's cut into thin rounds
-1 onion chopped
-1 green or red bell pepper chopped
-4-6 cloves garlic minced
-2 cans 16 ounces Chickpeas/ Garbanzos drained
-1 can 8 oz. tomato sauce
-salt to taste
-1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper (optional my grandmother doesn't use it I do however)
-1 teaspoon ground cumin
-1 cup water

Directions:
(1) Heat lard or olive oil in a pan on medium high heat, when hot add the smoked ham or bacon or fresh pork meat (whatever you choose), when slightly browned add onion, bell pepper, and garlic saute 5-7 minutes until tender and onion is translucent

(2) Stir in sliced spanish chorizo, when the oil turns slightly reddish and so do the onions, add drained chickpeas, cumin, black pepper and stir 30 minutes, add tomato sauce and water bring to rolling a boil on high heat to heat through.

(3) Turn off heat and serve over white rice. It can stand alone with rice, or you can serve it with a salad (something simple like cucumber, tomato, onion, lettuce tossed with lime or lemon even vinegar, a little olive oil and salt)
PLEASE NOTE:
(1) My Tata (grandmother) likes making this with bacon or cubed salted pork that she renders in olive oil then starts the recipe. I didn't have any and had two fresh pork shoulder steaks that I cubed, which is perfectly fine.

(2) I know Spanish chorizo isn't available everywhere here in the USA, so if you must substitute it with a smoked sausage like Keilbasa.

(3) If you want to stretch out the dish to feed more people, you can form the sauce BUT don't add the chickpeas yet and instead simmer about 2 potatoes cut in chunks in the sauce, then add the chickpeas towards the end. It will take longer, but is a way to stretch out the dish to feed more people ha ha.


I'm submitting this recipe to Ruchikacooks who is hosting this month's "My Legume Love Affair" which is a Susan's brainchild Event. If you want to participate too, just take a look at Ruchika's blog or go to Susan's MLLA past, present and future to get all details.