Tuesday 15 October 2013

Spanish Chickpea and Chorizo Soup



So our round-the world-in-several-soups trip reaches Spain and a delicious, hearty chorizo and chickpea soup, which is prefect for winter evenings as much as it is summer days.

Whilst we are on the subject, having made this soup and also some paella in the last few days, the inevitable discussion about pronunciation of various words came up.  Is it Pie-ella or Pa-ya-yah, Choritzo or Choritho? I always feel like there is some snobbery when people correct my pronunciation of foreign words - after all there are plenty of common English words that we still can't agree on (S-kone or s-gone for instance) and nobody ever condescendingly tries to correct my pronunciation of those words.

Also, does anyone ever actually say 'po-tay-toe' or 'to-may-toe'?

Ah, lets's call the whole thing off, shall we? In the meantime, I think that sliced hard boiled egg should be a made into a compulsary topping for every soup that I make in the future - I am almost as obsessed with it as I am with dumplings and black puddings at the moment.  It's such a simple addition to any dish but it adds a creamy, rich extra bit of goodness to it.  Go on and try it, you know you want to...


Ingredients
1 Large Onion
2 Stalks Celery
200g Spinach
200g Chorizo 
1 Tin Chickpeas
1 Tin Tomatoes
2 Cloves Garlic
1tsp Fresh Thyme
1tbsp Sherry
1.2l Chicken Stock
3 Eggs

Method
1.  Finely chop the onion, celery and garlic.  In your soup pan, heat some oil and fry the vegetables until they start to soften.

2.  Add the chorizo and thyme and cook a little more.

3.  Add the stock, sherry, tomoatoes and drained chickpeas, then bring the soup to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

4.  In another pant, hard boil your eggs and set them aside to cool

5.  After the soup has been simmering for 30 minutes, add the chopped spinach and let cook for another 5 - 10 minutes, adjust seasoning and serve

6.  Top each bowl with a few slices of hard boiled egg. Enjoy!

2 comments:

  1. This looks yummy! I can't get chorizo in Italy but may well give it a go with some Calabrian sausage!

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  2. Great warming soup for the colder days to come. This soup is also found in Portugal and you can find lots of variations with different vegetables, sausages and herbs. Always good against the cold.

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