Spicy Chickpea Soup with Smoked Paprika
Soups • European
Description
If you don't have a market nearby with stalls run by Eastern vendors selling various pickles and sauces, including the necessary adjika, you can prepare an improvised version the night before using a cold method. Store-bought adjika will ruin the flavor, so it's best to make your own. It's simple: take a tomato, grate its flesh (to avoid the hassle of peeling, you can just grate it on a coarse grater — the skin will stay in your hands). In the flesh of the fresh tomato, mince garlic, add some hot red pepper, fenugreek (if you're as obsessed with spices as I am, you probably have it), squeeze in some lemon juice (or vinegar) to taste, and add a couple of drops of vegetable oil. Of course, add a bit of salt. If you like, you can also grate some horseradish in there. Cover and let it sit in the fridge overnight. I am a fan of smoked paprika because I love the smoky flavor, but I can't have smoked meats due to gastritis. It has an incredibly strong smoky aroma and is not spicy. You can use it to make anything smoky — from vegetables to meat, poultry, fish, and even bread. It's the perfect solution for gourmets who are watching their figure, heart, and stomach. Why do I use three types of oils? I like everyone I care about to be happy. Chickpeas pair well with sesame oil. Onions and garlic are fantastic with olive oil. Sunflower oil, with its seed aroma, loses its cloying sweetness during cooking, which I dislike, and leaves a light aroma that is invariably associated with the scent of summer sunshine. Sumac is a spice made from ground berries of a shrub that grows vigorously in the Middle East and the Balkans, reddish-burgundy in color with a sour taste. It is always available on spice shelves at grocery markets. If you can't find it within your vicinity, you can grind dried cranberries as a substitute. When served hot, it warms you up and helps with strong alcohol consumption. When served cold, it helps to alleviate the effects of strong alcohol.
Ingredients
- Chickpea 1 cup
- Spanish onions 2 pieces
- Leek 1 piece
- Carrot 4 pieces
- Garlic 5 cloves
- Potato 1 piece
- Dill 1 bunch
- Lemon 1 piece
- Toasted Cumin Seeds 1 teaspoon
- Coriander essential oil 1 teaspoon
- Dried Barberry 2 teaspoons
- Sumac 1 teaspoon
- Bay leaf 2 pieces
- Parsley 0 oz
- Saffron a pinch
- Smoked salt 1 teaspoon
- Adjika 2 tablespoons
- TABASCO® to taste
- Champagne Vinegar 1 tablespoon
- Red Wine Vinegar 1 tablespoon
- Ocean salt to taste
- Flaky sea salt 1 tablespoon
- Green peppercorns 1 teaspoon
- Olive Oil 2 tablespoons
- Sesame Oil 1 tablespoon
- Unrefined Sunflower Oil 1 tablespoon
Step-by-Step Guide
Step 1
Soak the chickpeas overnight in a large pot.
Step 2
Take the soaked chickpeas, rinse them, cover with cold water, and put on the heat. If you happen to have homemade vegetable broth ready, that's great. If not, add one whole red onion, 2 carrots, the green part of the leek, and a whole bunch of dill directly to the chickpeas. Add the first batch of spices: barberry, black peppercorns, coriander seeds, parsley root, and cumin — all 1 teaspoon each. Add two bay leaves. Wait for it to boil. Keep it boiling on high heat for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat and relax for 20 minutes.
Step 3
Next, get back to the kitchen and enthusiastically chop a mound of vegetables: garlic, red onion, the white part of the leek, and carrots. A proven fact — if you cut the vegetables for one dish in the same shape, it really tastes better. So for this soup, I cut everything into half-rings and half-circles.
Step 4
Take a large frying pan, pour in about 2 tablespoons of each of our three oils (for the skeptics). When the oil mix heats up, add three pinches of salt, a pinch of coriander seeds, and black pepper. Then add the chopped vegetables. Keep on high heat for 1-2 minutes.
Step 5
Now add a heaping teaspoon of smoked paprika, a tablespoon of sumac, and 5-6 drops of smoked Tabasco. Next, take a pinch of saffron threads in a bowl and pour in a ladle of our boiling broth with chickpeas. Let it sit for 5 minutes. Pour one tablespoon of sherry vinegar into the vegetables. Once it evaporates, add the improvised adjika and pour in the saffron. Sauté and simmer for another couple of minutes.
Step 6
Meanwhile, remove the onion, carrots, leek, dill, and bay leaves from the pot and add all the contents from the frying pan. Now cut the fresh tomato into large rings (if you don't mind, like me, with the skin on). Heat the frying pan used for the vegetables with a drop of any oil and place the rings in it, sprinkle with black pepper, and sauté for a minute on each side. After that, add them to the soup.
Step 7
Taste the broth. Add what you feel is missing. I usually add one tablespoon of red vinegar, the juice of half a lemon, another tablespoon of smoked paprika and sumac, a teaspoon of sugar, and a tablespoon of coarse sea salt at the end. It’s not as much as it seems. First, we didn’t salt the water while cooking to keep the chickpeas from getting hard. Second, vinegar absorbs half the taste of salt. Simmer on the lowest heat for another 7-10 minutes (check the chickpeas, just don’t overcook them), turn off the heat, and ideally let it sit for a couple of hours.
Step 8
Serve with a bowl of chopped cilantro, parsley, red basil, and ideally tarragon, drizzled with lemon juice.
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