Tuesday, March 30, 2010

A Light Leek Soup

First, lets start with a pretty picture of ingredients so that no one loses faith in me as a cook:

Rosemary, thyme and garlic

I'm not going to lie. Soup night was BIT of an adventure last night.

Mary is in Guatemala this week with some college friends (jealous!) so I decided to meet up with my partner from Amigos in 2000 (that's right, a DECADE ago) for a drink before soup night. But I also had some dried chickpeas and homemade chicken broth, so first a ran home and threw them into the dutch oven on low so they would be ready when I got home.

When I got back, I was greeted with this:


my apartment

Oh yeah, that's a smoke filled apartment.... and some really burned chickpeas.

The mystery is that I really DID leave the stove on very low. Dutch ovens don't need much heat, that's the whole beauty of them! So I'm blaming the cat. Although I probably shouldn't have left the apartment with the stove on. Safety first!

LUCKILY, I was still able to make a delicious soup.... just not as chickpea-y as I expected. And yes, I am that girl who rescued as many chickpeas as she good and likes the taste of lightly burned (or, in my mind, toasted!) things. You may want to stick to canned though.


separating the weak from strong

And yes, my apartment DOES still smell like burned chickpeas. So does my hair. And my hands. I had to scrub my dutch oven for about 45 minutes to get all the burnt parts off after soaking it overnight. Don't drink and dutch kids. Or don't dutch and then just step out for one drink because you might end up smelling like a Mediterranean market and not in a good way.

On the plus side, my mom always told me eating burned things would make my hair curly.... cheap perm, here I come!

Without further ado....


A Light Leek Soup

  • saute 6-8 roughly chopped cloves of garlic in olive oil with a few sprigs of fresh rosemary and thyme

  • add the roughly chopped white and light green parts of 3-4 leeks and cook until they're getting a little floppy

  • add one bunch of broccoli (include the thin parts of the stem too, and if you want to blend, the whole stalk)chopped into small pieces/florets

  • add one large zucchini, sliced and quartered, and about 3 tablespoons of butter, sliced around the pot and stirred in

  • cook, stirring occasionally, until broccoli is bright green and zucchini is mostly soft

  • add chicken (or veggie) broth, barely covering veggies and about 1.5 cups of cooked "toasted" chickpeas.... or just an unburned can of chickpeas

    • note: I used a broth that I'd already infused with lemon, which was GREAT, but you can also just squeeze the juice of 1-2 lemons in at this point

  • simmer a little while until veggies are done all the way through and serve!



4 comments:

  1. You neglected to mention - for all your readers who are not familiar with the smell of burnt chick peas - that the smell is perhaps best described as a mélange of burnt hair and tar.

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  2. alayna,

    did you try boiling water in your pot to get the tar out? It usually works way better than soaking.

    paul

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  3. no, but that's a good tip! hopefully there won't be a next time, but if there is i'll try it!

    ReplyDelete