For this week’s recipe we will be making my favourite soup, the rustic and hearty chorizo and chickpea soup. It is a firm winter favourite and with minimal effort it becomes a deep and rich chunky bowl of comfort – perfect for the colder weather! Watch video on YouTube
Serves 6
Ingredients:
2 onions – finely chopped
4 cloves garlic – minced
5 stalks celery – small dice
1 piece Spanish chorizo – small cube (about 200g)
5g thyme – pick the leaves and rough chop
5g parsley – pick the leaves and rough chop
1 tin chickpeas – drain and rinse
2 tin chopped tomato
100g baby spinach – washed
1lt chicken or vegetable stock
Bread of your choice (baguette is best, I used Portuguese rolls this time)
Olive oil
Salt & Pepper
Sugar
Method:
Chop the onion, garlic and thyme and put together. Next chop the celery, and then the chorizo, keeping them separate. Lastly the parsley, set it aside with the spinach for the end.
Put 30ml of olive oil in a pot and get it nice and hot, add the chorizo and fry. You want to get the chorizo nice and crisp while rendering the fat out of it as well. This fat will be the base that the rest of the soup is built on. Once it has nicely rendered and is crisp, remove the chorizo and keep the oil in the pot.
Add the onion, garlic and thyme to the oil and fry for a few minutes, then add the celery.
Fry on a medium heat for about 10min until it’s all nice and soft, then add the chorizo again. Add the tinned tomato and chicken stock.
Bring this to the boil, then reduce the heat to low and place a lid on the pot, and cook for 15min.
This step is to cook the tomato so we go past the raw tomato flavor and get the richness out of them that we want.
Remove the lid, add the chickpeas, increase the heat to medium and give it a good simmer for another 20min.
Check the seasoning, adding salt, pepper and a touch of sugar if it is too acidic from the tomatoes. To finish add the spinach and parsley and cook until the spinach is soft.
To serve, cut thick slices from the bread, rub in some olive oil and toast in a dry pan. Ladle the soup into a bowl and drizzle with some olive oil.
