Yesterday I found myself fancying chickpea soup.
There was a bottle of chickpeas three-quarters (300gms) full in the fridge.
We had plenty of onions, a couple of carrots, some celery and two fennel bulbs in the crisper.
I put a third of the chickpeas in the small blender bowl with some of their liquid and whizzed them smooth.
Soffrito/battuto (what’s the difference?!*) next–the engine room of the soup–to give it some oomph.
So I chopped up 2 smallish onions, a couple of garlic cloves into small dice and sweated them in four tablespoons of olive oil in a medium saucepan for 20 minutes.
While the soffrito was softening I chopped the fennel into larger dice.
I added the chickpeas–mashed and whole–to the pan and stirred it well together.
Then in went the fennel dice and added a small stem of fresh thyme.and two bay leaves
I squeezed a scant tablespoon of tomato concentrate from a tube in the fridge, stirred it into the mixture and added a pint/500ml of vegetable stock and a tablespoon of chopped parsley—next time I’d add this to the soffrito.
Seasoned well with salt and freshly ground black pepper, brought it all up to the simmer and nearly forgot to add a small piece of the rind of parmesan cheese–cooked it all on for about 20 minutes until the fennel had softened.
We swirled some olive oil into our bowls, ate it slowly and sighed!
*A battuto is a pile of chopped raw ingredients, in this case just vegetables but sometimes it involves smoked or green bacon.
It becomes a soffrito when the pile is cooked slowly in oil, fat or butter as the base of a soup or a casserole.
This serves 2/3 or 4 at a pinch.
Robin Ellis 
Looks good, will try this as its getting cold and miserable outside.
Dear Mr Ellis,
It’s been over a week and if you are still feeling the affects of being sick, may I ask if you went to “le doctor”? I hope so.
Oh, and the soup looks amazing. Thank-you!
Best regards,
Georgene
Kind of you to ask, Georgene. I haven’t seen the doc. It’s a virus that’s going around here-we’ve heard of a number of people who’ve been struck. We’ll see how it goes…
Dear Mr Ellis,
I have to say that you remind me so much of my husband when it comes to cooking. I will go into our kitchen and forage and come up empty and then 5 mins later amazing aromas are coming out of the same kitchen and I”ll walk in to see him creating this epicurean delight and ask “Where did you fine that?” only to have him say, “Here!” as he is pointing to our kitchen! I’m just standing there thinking where!?! I wonder if your wife may feel the same because I know I”ll never get use to him just knowing how to create such amazing and delicious dishes. My hats off to you or as u would say my chapeau>
Best regards,
Georgene. .
It sounds like I could learn from your husband, Georgene!
Dear Mr Ellis,
Sorry. but please don’t wait to long to go. Feel better.
Best regards,
Geoprgene
We have 2 rainy days coming our way. This is a perfect idea for our menu. I love your recipes.
Looks incredible! I hope I can duplicate this in my kitchen.
Go for it Mary!
This soup sounds like “just what the doctor ordered!” Hope you’re feeling better! When the weather (or WE) start feeling cold & yucky, I fall back on a similar way of making my aunt’s minestrone soup…a handful of this and that…whatever leftover veggies & pasta we have hanging around. But the chickpeas sound like a nice base. I’ll have to try this.
And Happy-almost-Halloween to you & Meredith! (Do the French celebrate the holiday over there??)
Cheers & Hugs!
Yes, Dianne, the day after Halloween is very important here. We are next to the graveyard–never felt odd that–and in the weeks leading up to tomorrow relatives come to tidy the graves and leave flowers. The priest will bless the place we’ve heard. He looks after eleven parishes, so he’ll be busy!
Ah, yes, I had forgotten. Gene’s Polish relatives light candles at the graves & do the same. We will go to Mass tomorrow, too, but all the tidying is done around Memorial Day (May 30) or when the kids go back to school in the fall…mostly because the weather starts changing so quickly. Hopefully, no snow for another month or so, but you never know! Two years ago, the kids had to climb over snow-banks when they went trick-or-treating!
PS: My grandfather was never worried about the nearby cemetery, either. He used to chuckle, “Ils sont tous morts!”
Dear Robin, here it is the difference between soffritto an battuto.
Battuto is the little pieces of vegetables you cut before frying them. Soffritto is the result of it after frying them. See you soon (look forward to it)
Thank you, Chiara.
Perfect Halloween fare!
Seems the virus is over here too, trying to avoid it, so I’m in Cork with my Grandchildren, 4 year old Batman sitting beside me the twin granddaughters, 2 years old, dancing to “Heads and shoulders knees and toes” lively to say the least all ready for “Trick or Treat” Halloween very old Celtic festival goes back to the Druids in Co Meath in the mists of time, allegedly! There will be Curried pumpkin or soup tomorrow. Will try the Chickpea soup when I go home looks tasty, I have recipe for Chickpea soup but this looks lighter. Happy Halloween 🙂
And to you too, Nora–whose playing Robin!
Real cold weather soup. One for me!
We were waiting for you Robin!!! Great night, two little witches very cute with their tiny witches hats on over their woolly bobble hats, Batman singing his Trick or Treat songs lots of booty, will be rationed – should last until Christmas. Lovely meal of gammon. mashed potato, steamed carrots and cabbage to warm us up when we got home, which wasn’t too late when you consider the ages of the Halloween Rhymers!
Robin,
What a whiz you are in the kitchen! Haven’t tried this one, but I am sure I will.
I am rapidly becoming a fan of your recipes. Bravo!
Lea Frey
Oh Robin, I just finished cooking a pot of this soup……delicious! My plan was this soup for dinner tonight. I just hope I don’t eat it all before Neil gets home! I better have a backup plan in case my willpower fails!