Espinacas con Garbanzos (Naturally Vegan — Seville)

Espinacas con garbanzos — spinach with chickpeas — is one of the great naturally vegan preparations of Andalusian tapas cooking: humble, ancient, deeply flavoured, and astonishingly satisfying. The preparation is deceptively simple in appearance but requires attention to the quality of the base: stale bread fried in olive oil until golden-brown and then ground with garlic, cumin, and smoked paprika to form the picada (a sauce-thickening paste from the Moorish tradition) that gives the dish its characteristic depth and slightly thickened consistency. The chickpeas are then warmed in the picada with the spinach, which wilts into the sauce. A splash of sherry vinegar at the end brightens the entire preparation. The dish's character comes directly from the picada technique — without it, the dish is spinach with chickpeas; with it, it is one of Andalusia's most celebrated tapas.