Friday, January 9, 2009

Middle Eastern Chickpea Soup


Finally something healthy after my seemingly never ending slew of baked goods! I really don't eat cookies and things all day, but baked good recipes are generally always more successful for me than recipes I try out for meals. Most likely due to the fact that I try and find healthy recipes for lunches and dinners, and not all healthy recipes are super delicious so I don't end up posting about them all the time.

So apparently it's time for me to get into making soups again! Though I can't really handle having soup more than a couple of times a week (at least not for my main course). Maybe if it was a brothy soup but the ones I make usually aren't, like this one. It's another recipe from Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special. Almost everything I've made from this cookbook has been either good or really good so I'm sure I'll continue through some more soups this winter from it.


Overall I quite liked this soup though next time I will play with the spices a bit more. I also need to find a new curry powder. I love curry powder so I love adding lots of it to things but when I did that recently in a tofu salad it made my tongue feel weird. I didn't really enjoy that. The problem is my bag of curry powder is huge... Ah well I should just pick up a different kind.

If this sounds good, you might also like:
Curried Sweet Potato Soup
Beet, Barley and Black Bean Soup
Choklay's Tibetan Lentil Soup

Middle Eastern Chickpea Soup
Adapted from Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special

I changed too many things to note them here but the recipe is basically the same with the addition of carrots and celery, replaced red potato with sweet potato, extra amounts of the spices, and curry powder instead of turmeric.

1 sweet potato
3 to 4 cups vegetable stock
2 15-oz cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
5 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
2 carrots, diced
2 celery stalks, diced
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp + 1 tsp ground cumin
1 tbsp + 1 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp curry powder
1/8 tsp cayenne
ground black pepper to taste
2 cups diced tomatoes
chopped fresh parsley

Poke the sweet potato with a fork all over, then microwave it on a plate on high for a few minutes. Depending on the size it can take up to 10 minutes, so just keep checking and microwaving until it's done (really soft and mushy). If you have the time and prefer it you can go ahead and roast the sweet potato. Either peel the sweet potato and put this in a blender or food processor, or peel the skin off and put the insides in the blender.

In this blender, add to the sweet potatoes 1 cup of stock and puree; then transfer to a soup pot. Combine the chickpeas and about 2 cups of the vegetable stock and blend until very smooth. Add the chickpea puree to the soup pot and heat gently, stirring frequently.

Meanwhile, in a skillet, heat the oil and saute the onions, garlic, celery, carrot, salt, cumin, coriander, curry, cayenne and black pepper until the onions are translucent, about 10 minutes. Stir the sauteed onions into the soup. If the soup is too thick, add more vegetable stock. When the soup is hot, stir in the diced tomatoes and cook for a few more minutes. Add more salt and black pepper to taste.

Serve topped with parsley.

16 comments:

Snooky doodle said...

this looks nice! I love soups especially the chunky looking ones :) thanks for sharing

Steph said...

The soup looks delicious! I like how there's a sweet potato..mmm. Did you friend from Japan received the package of cookies yet? Don't worry, I'm sure they would be loved no matter what. Although I sort of had the same problem when I couldn't convince my grandma to hand carry my cookies so I ended up not making anything at all...Usually my problem is with softening too much so the whole cookie has uniform texture. I think it's because I usually make recipes loaded with brown sugar.

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

OOOH, fabulous.

Anonymous said...

This looks really tasty! I love curry flavor and garbanzos - I bet I would love this soup! Yum!

Pearl said...

that looks beautiful! i <3 soup :)

test it comm said...

This soup sounds healthy and good!

Anonymous said...

The flavors in this soup look so good!

grace said...

i don't particularly care for curry, but everything else about your soup is saying my name. the texture must be amazing.

Anonymous said...

I'm the same with cooking and dessert (stating the obvious, I guess!). The soup looks great--and love that bowl!

Jacqueline Meldrum said...

That sounds really good Ashley, especially with the curry powder in it. Real good winter comfort food. As you know, I love soup :)

CookiePie said...

That looks delicious! I love anything with curry. Yum!

La Cuisine d'Helene said...

I have this cookbook but have not made this recipe yet. Looks good.

kickpleat said...

mmmm, this soup looks rad!

Unknown said...

This almost looks like an Indian (East) dish - delicious nonetheless!

Deborah said...

I should try this because it is so different from the recipes I normally make. I think it sounds delicious!

Sarah said...

Just made this! It was delicious. I'd been eyeing it since you posted it and finally got around to it! The flavors worked well with the curry powder I have. Thanks for a great recipe! I especially loved the addition of the sweet potato.