"Gary's Soup": Tomato, Zucchini and Chickpea Soup

I was standing in one of the most beautiful villas in Umbria stumbling around in the fridge trying to come up with something for the staff to eat for lunch. Although wonderfully delicious there was only so much panzanella salad and pasta peperoncino anyone could eat unless of course you were a a local. The issue that I had was that most of the staff weren’t local. And so, forlornly I stood with the fridge door wide open staring into the vast cavity hoping that something would leap out at me whilst the clock ticked away relentlessly in my head.

I had a couple of rules, it had to be vegan, it had to have chilli, tomatoes and chickpeas in it as those ingredients were in abundance. I had this idea for soup floating around for sometime but never had a chance to make it, I had cooked many versions of this broth as it is quite simple and quite restorative but as a macro biotic version with out the tomatoes or chillies. It had become the vegan version of Jewish chicken soup, made entirely on water to keep a true clarity of vegetable flavour. This version is named after a friend who is acupuncturist and does wonderful things, painfully wonderful things when my knee had stopped working. This soup became a favourite of his so much that he forced me to give him the recipe on pain of "never getting another treatment".

Cooking simple soups with out the use of animal based stocks takes a while to master as the flavours are so different, but once accustomed to the flavour they are full of nutrition and a wonderful clarity of flavour without stewy-ness. Just be careful not to over cook the greens. I always blanch them in boiling salty water and refresh in ice water just to keep there flavour, colour and texture before putting them into the soup. Play around with this recipe until you get the flavours right. I have only used zucchini but any greens will do: chard, kale, spinach or even a mixture. Add as little or as much as you like.

Ingredients (serves 4)

2 carrots diced
2 sticks celery diced
2 brown onions diced
1 clove garlic finely chopped
50 mls of cold pressed extra virgin olive oil.
1 tsp chilli powder (of your liking) 1/2 tsp of smoked paprika.
400g of really good tomato passata
200g of raw chickpeas or 1 400g can of organic chickpeas

Method

Wash, peel, rewash and chop the carrots, celery, onions and garlic.
Heat the extra virgin olive oil in a heavy based pan and sweat without colour.
When slightly softened add a pinch of salt and the chopped garlic continue to cook for several minutes.
Add the vegetable stock or water and simmer for 10 minutes on a low heat.
Right at the end add a teaspoon of chilli powder, (I love the kasmiri chilli from Herbie’s), half a teaspoon of smoked paprika and the tomato passata. Add as much or as little as you want depending your your own preferences.
The base is now ready. I often like to keep this overnight before adding the vegetables as this extra time helps the flavours blend. This is also a great stock base.
Once you have the stock base ready, prepare the chickpeas by soaking overnight in fresh water.
Discard the water and place in a pot with ten times the volume of cold fresh water. Don’t add any salt.
Bring to a simmer and cook until tender.
Once cooked turn off the heat and season with mixture with salt, allow to stand for 10 minutes and then drain.
Next, bring a large pot of salted water to the boil.
Wash and chop the greens into bit sized pieces.
Add the greens to the boiling water and submerge.
After 30 seconds to a minute, drain the greens and plunge into cold water to halt the cooking process. This holds in the colour, flavour and texture. Once cold drain off and pat dry.
Heat up the broth and add a small amount of chopped parsley and seasoning and spice as required. Add the greens and chickpeas and allow to stand for 30minutes or overnight.
Re-heat and serve with additional seasoning as required.