Chickpea and silverbeet soup
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour 5 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 25 minutes
Servings: 4 servings
Basic ingredients come together to make this hearty soup that's full of flavour and easy on the wallet. If you can;t get hold of silverbeet/Swiss chard, use spinach or another leafy green. For non-vegetarians, grated parmesan would go very nicely here, as would some buttered bread to mop everything up.
Ingredients
- 360g drained tinned chickpeas (1½ tins) – reserve the remaining drained chickpeas and their liquid for other recipes
- 100ml olive oil
- Salt and black pepper
- 2 onions, peeled and finely chopped
- 1 carrot, peeled and roughly chopped into ½cm cubes
- 3 sticks celery, roughly chopped into ½cm cubes
- 1 small potato, peeled and cut into 2cm cubes
- 1 tbsp thyme leaves, roughly chopped
- 1 tsp tomato paste
- ¼ tsp smoked paprika
- 8 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
- 900ml vegetable stock or water
- 600g silverbeet (or Swiss chard), stems cut into 1cm chunks, leaves roughly shredded
- 1 red chilli, finely sliced on an angle
- 10g picked flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
- 2 lemons – 1 zested, to get 1 tsp, and juiced, to get 1 tbsp, the other cut into wedges, to serve
Method
Heat the oven to 160C/145C fan. Pat the chickpeas dry, then spread out 100g of them on an oven tray lined with baking paper. Add two teaspoons of oil, a good pinch of salt and a good grind of pepper, toss to coat, then roast for about an hour, until golden and crisp.
Heat two tablespoons of oil in a large saucepan on a medium-high flame, then sauté the onions, stirring often, until softened and lightly browned – about seven minutes. Add the remaining 260g chickpeas, carrot, celery, potato, thyme, tomato paste, smoked paprika and half the garlic, cook for two minutes. Add the stock, a teaspoon and three-quarters of salt and a good grind of black pepper, and bring to a boil. Turn the heat to medium, cover the pan and leave to simmer gently for about 25 minutes, until the vegetables are completely soft. Transfer to a blender in batches and blend smooth, then keep warm until ready to serve.
Heat two tablespoons of oil in large sauté pan on a medium heat. Add the chard stems and cook for five minutes, until softened. Add half the chilli and the remaining garlic, cook for two minutes, then stir in the chard leaves, a quarter-teaspoon of salt and a good grind of pepper, and cook for four minutes, until wilted. Turn off the heat and stir in the parsley, lemon zest and juice.
Divide the soup between four bowls, top with the chard, the crisp chickpeas and the remaining chilli, drizzle with the remaining 30ml oil and serve hot with lemon wedges.
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