Chickpea and Onion Soup

This is a variant of Jamie Oliver’s recipe Leek and Chickpea soup from his Naked Chef book. I’ve used canned chickpeas, because it’s far easier to find them here than dried ones. It also requires no forethought or overnight soaking. The other thing to note is that the recipe uses shallots, which Australians often confuse with spring onions. Shallots look like slightly squished brown onions until you peel the paper-like outer layers off and suddenly they look like red onions! In the forthcoming onion revolution, you’d better believe that shallots are going to be the red onion’s spies in the brown onion camp.

The other thing that amuses me about this recipe is that despite being labelled an 'Onion Soup', it uses neither thing most people think of when they think of onions – the red (Spanish) or brown varieties.

Chickpea and Onion Soup

3–4 spring onions
250 g scallions (about 6), chopped finely
3 medium leeks, chopped finely
2 sticks of celery with leaves, chopped
2 cloves garlic
1 can chickpeas (about 250 g drained)
1 small potato, cubed
1 L vegetable or faux chicken stock
black pepper to taste

Chop the spring onions into slices. Reserve the green slices.

Combine potato and chickpeas in medium-sized saucepan with water to cover. Simmer until potato is soft and floury.

Heat about 1/2 cup water in a large saucepan and add the spring onions, scallions and leeks. Steam fry until soft. Add celery and garlic, steam fry for a few minutes more and then add the stock. Cook for another 10 minutes. Add the drained chickpeas, potato and black pepper, cook for another 5–10 minutes then puree. I use a stick blender as I find it’s easier, but you can also use a normal blender, or even just a potato masher if you want to thicken the soup but leave the texture of the onion.

Serve hot, with reserved spring onions on top.