Smoked paprika is the single most valuable spice in this kind of cooking. It supplies the thing tinned food most obviously lacks. The suggestion that something was cooked over fire, and it does it instantly, for almost no weight.
- Warm the oil in the pan and add the dried onion. Let it rehydrate and soften for two or three minutes; it will smell sweet rather than dusty when it is ready. This step is what stops dried onion tasting like powder.
- Add the garlic, smoked paprika and cumin. Thirty seconds, stirring, off the heat if the pan is fierce: paprika scorches easily and there is no coming back from it.
- Tomatoes in, then the chickpeas with about half their liquid. The liquid is starchy and it will thicken the stew.
- Simmer twenty minutes, pressing a few of the chickpeas against the side of the pan as you go. Those broken ones are what turn it from a soup with chickpeas in into a stew.
- Salt to taste, then the vinegar off the heat.
The vinegar at the end is not a garnish. Taste it before and after and you will hear the whole dish come into focus.
Serves 4 with bread, 2 as a main course on its own.