Chickpea soup

March 18, 2019

After the success of one slow, soaked-chickpea recipe from the lab cookbook, we were keen to try another! If anything, this chickpea soup from Kate is even slower and simpler - it was a little bold of us to take on 1-1.5 hour simmer on a weeknight, but we persevered and were rewarded with big bowls of comfort and some parmesan-garlic toast on the side.

Since our dried chickpea stocks were running low, we made only two-thirds of the recipe quantity (but post the full quantity below). The recipe instructs us to partially mash the buttery chickpeas to thicken the soup, and there's a lot of flexibility here from 'vegetables in thin broth' through to 'thick and almost smooth'. I reckon I might get the stick blender out next time for something different.

Chickpea soup
(a recipe shared by Kate)

150mL olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
500g dried chickpeas, soaked overnight
1-2 celery sticks, thinly sliced
1 fresh bay leaf (I used 2 dry ones)
juice of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
sprinkle of dry oregano

Set a very large saucepan over medium heat and pour in the olive oil. Add the onion and saute it, stirring regularly, until it starts to brown.

Drain and rinse the chickpeas, and add them to the saucepan, stirring them around to coat them in the oil.

Add the celery and bay leaf, and pour in hot water until the chickpeas are submerged to a depth of about 4 cm (it's a lot of water). Bring it all to the boil, and skim off any froth. Turn the heat down a bit, pop a lid on the pot, and let it all simmer for 1-1.5 hours, until the chickpeas are soft.

Add lemon juice, plenty of salt, and cook gently for 5-10 minutes. Carefully mash some of the chickpeas in the pan until you achieve your preferred consistency, or blend with a hand mixer. 

Add the parsley and oregano, and more salt and lemon juice if you like.