Chickpea Soup Forever

Photo: Robyn MacLarty

Ingredients

Chickpea soup

4 Serves (very hungry people)

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 small onion, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 stick celery, chopped

1 carrot, chopped

1 sprig rosemary, finely chopped

1 litr chicken stock (or water)

3 grams x 400 cans chickpeas

200 grams small pasta, such as ditalini or conchigliette

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 small red chilli, seeds removed and finely chopped

150 grams spinach, roughly chopped

4 pork sausages

Preparation

Heat the olive oil in a heavy-bottomed pot and add the onion, garlic, celery, carrot and rosemary. Cook on a very low heat until the vegetables are soft and the onion translucent, about 15 to 20 minutes (you want them to take as long as possible to go soft, without letting them brown — this is the secret to bringing out their flavour).

Add half the stock (500ml) to the pot, as well as half the chickpeas and all of the pasta. Allow to simmer until the pasta is cooked.

In the meantime, warm the remaining stock and chickpeas together in a separate pot, then liquidise using a handheld blender. Pour this into the main pot, as well as the tomato paste and chilli, and stir to combine.

Add the spinach and allow to simmer for 20 to 30 minutes.

While the soup is simmering, squeeze out the pork sausage filling into a non-stick frying pan and fry until nicely browned. Break up the pork mince into chunks (consistency doesn’t really matter; I like to have a combination of chunks and lots of little golden pork crumbs).

If the soup is too thick, add a little water or stock until it reaches a desirable consistency — you don’t want it to be watery, but you don’t want it to be stodgy, either. Season to taste.

Ladle the soup into bowls, drizzle with a little extra virgin olive oil, top with the pork and serve.

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About

The flavour of this soup is unbelievable — there’s the somewhat bland but reassuring flavour of chickpeas, but also a deeply savoury element which hits that umami button, and then hits it again.