Wednesday, 1 January 2014

New Years Eve Soup

Chickpea Soup

A simple soup flavoured with cumin and coriander. Made utterly delicious by adding salbitxada sauce to the bowl when ladled out. Recipes from Ottolenghi, The Guardian.


Chickpea soup

This needs a little something stirred into it at the end, to give it an edge. Make coriander oil, as here, or use some salbitxada. Serves four.
90ml olive oil
2 onions, peeled and cut into 1cm dice
4 garlic cloves, crushed
2 carrots, peeled and cut into 1cm dice
4 celery stalks, cut into 1cm dice
2 tbsp harissa (or to taste)
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
500g cooked chickpeas
1½ tsp salt and black pepper
1.2 litres vegetable stock
25g coriander, leaves and stalks
Heat two tablespoons of oil in a heavy-based saucepan, and sauté the onions on medium heat for five minutes, until translucent. Add the garlic, carrots and celery, cook for eight minutes, then stir in the harissa and spices, and cook for two minutes. Stir in the chickpeas, salt and plenty of black pepper, add the stock and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
If making the coriander oil, blitz the coriander in food processor with a pinch of salt, then slowly pour in 60ml of oil and process until smooth

Ladle soup into bowls and drizzle over the oil or salbitxada.

Salbitxada sauce
Salbitxada is a sharp and lightly sweet Catalan sauce that's traditionally served with calçots – spring or salad onions, grilled whole, make a good substitute.
1 red pepper
2 red chillies
5 garlic cloves, skin on
40g flaked almonds, toasted
4 ripe tomatoes (400g), blanched, peeled and deseeded
2 tsp sherry vinegar
Salt
100ml olive oil
Heat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6. Put the pepper, chillies and garlic on an oven tray and roast for 10 minutes. Remove the chillies and garlic, turn the pepper and roast for 20 minutes more. Once the skin is blistered, put the pepper in a bowl and cover with clingfilm. When cool, peel and deseed both the pepper and chillies, and peel the garlic.
Grind the almonds to a coarse powder in a food processor. Add the pepper, chilli, garlic and tomatoes, and whizz to a paste. Add the vinegar and a quarter-teaspoon of salt, then slowly add oil to make a thick sauce


No comments:

Post a Comment

Blog Archive