Moroccan Spiced Tomato and Chickpea Soup

My last post referred to my recent holiday and the inspiration it provided. The vegetarian and vegan food sampled during my whistle-stop tour of Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius was delicious, particularly in Tallin which is, quite simply, vegan paradise! I promptly resolved to make more use of some key ingredients that I tend to forget about and will make sure I follow up in future posts.

The first ingredient I have to address are chickpeas. I really must use chickpeas for something other than hummus and curry! I like chickpeas, I really do but I was obviously stuck in a chickpea rut. Mind you, its hard to ignore hummus when it is just so, so tasty.

The Hospitality tutors at Perth College UHI kindly provided the following recipe. I’d planned to share it slightly later in the year. However, my chickpea resolution coupled with the slight dip in temperature means there is no time like the present.

I have a few more recipes from the Hospitality tutors, so I’ll say a bit more about their work when I share those ideas at a later date. As always, I’ve provided the recipe below and added my own comments in brackets alongside.

Moroccan Spiced Tomato and Chickpea Soup

Serves 10 (330ml portions)

Difficulty rating Easy to medium

Suitable for Vegetarian, Vegan and Gluten free diets

Ingredients

• 40 ml extra virgin oil olive {I used extra virgin rapeseed oil}
• 500 g onions
• 0.5 a head of celeriac
• 20 g ground cumin
• 600 g chopped tomatoes
• 600 g chick peas
• 300 g broad beans {I used baby broad beans, so didn’t shell them all, just the larger ones}
• 5 g coriander
• 12 g garlic
• 5 g curly parsley
• 1 lemon
• 1.2 ltre vegetable stock (bouillon) {I used Marigold Vegetable bouillon}
• coarse sea salt
• cracked black pepper

Method

1. Peel and chop onions, celeriac and garlic.  Chop coriander and parsley.  Drain and wash chickpeas.  Prepare vegetable stock.
2. Heat the oil in a large saucepan and gently cook the diced onions, diced celeriac and crushed garlic until soft.  Add the cumin and cook for another minute (do not colour).
3. Add the stock, chick peas and tomatoes.  Simmer for 10 minutes.  Add the broad beans and lemon juice continue to cook for 5 minutes.  Season and serve topped with coriander and parsley.

I really enjoyed this soup. It is a hearty bowl and could easily be a meal in itself. I must confess to adding some harissa at the point of serving. I do like a lot of spice, so although it isn’t needed I enjoyed that extra kick. I also think that this soup would taste even better the following day are favours develop further.

Enjoy!

Val x