This pale dish does not look particularly exciting. nor do its flavors sing. This is a quiet dish, which makes it no less worthy as a comfort food than other recipes that I make to soothe myself.
I used stock, turkey broth specifically, but you can use water if you want to make this a vegetarian dish. I spooned this from a bowl, as is, but I could see that the addition of grated Parmesan could be a fine thing, or topping this with grilled salmon and a squeeze of lemon juice would nicely gild the lily.
I used ceci piccoli - tiny chickpeas - for this, to keep the size of what I was eating closer to that of the orzo, but regular chickpeas would work as well. Just cook them longer.
This makes about six portions.
2 cups of chickpeas, rehydrated overnight and then rinsed and drained before using
4 leeks, white part only, cut into coins and washed well
1/2 cup orzo
4 cups stock or water
2 bay leaves
Salt and pepper to taste
Place all of the ingredients except the orzo in a large saucepan.
Cover, leaving the lid askew so that some of the steam can escape, and cook, stirring every ten minutes or so and adding more stock if the pan starts to get dry, until the chickpeas are tender to the center when tasted, but not mushy. The cooking time will depend on how old your chickpeas are but, for reference sake, my cooking time came in at 35 minutes.
Stir in the orzo and cook for an additional five minutes. Add more stock if the orzo drinks up all the remaining liquid in the pan.
Cover, turn off the heat, and leave for an additional five minutes before eating.