This is what I would have imagined being fed if as a child if I grew up in some Spanish villa. Instead I grew up in a ranch style house in suburban San Francisco eating macaroni and cheese. Not that there is anything wrong with that cheesy goodness, but chorizo sausage it is not.

When I saw this recipe in July’s issue of Gourmet magazine, it intrigued me. Crispy bits of chorizo sausage, buttery chickpeas, and the crunch of toasted almonds sounded perfect. And this pasta dish was terrific, as long as you cast aside any preconceived notions as to what pasta should be like, in the Italian sense. This is not an al dente dish. The body that comes from this dish is not coming from the swollen angel hair noodles, it is coming from the other Spanish ingredients added to the pasta.

Homey, settling, all around satisfying. First, I cooked the garlic and then the chorizo, removing these goodies and leaving behind the delectable grease. As I broke up the dried angel pasta into bite-sized shards, and quickly browned them in enriched sausage grease (how bad could that be?), the nutty smells perfumed the kitchen. Then I cooked the pasta– completely, and as I added back in the plentiful cloves of garlic, and the shiny, spicy chorizo, I just knew that supper would be delicious.

Adorned with roasted and sliced almonds (save the Parmesan for another day), and some soapy clean cilantro (my addition), I felt like I had made a meal fit for a child. Chewy, warm, with the slipperiness of spaghetti, I got the same good feelings from eating this pasta, as I do from sitting down to a bowl full of my mom’s macaroni and cheese. With a slice of whole grain bread, and accompanied by cool, crisp salad this dish proved to be a wonderful weeknight meal. And the leftovers were just as good as the previous night’s dinner.