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Sunday, January 17, 2010

Your Sunday Recipe

Since it’s fixin’ to rain, rain, rain, it’s a perfect time for soup, soup, soup. This lovely recipe comes from a really great book, “Saved by Soup,” by Judith Barrett. Go to your local gookstore and order it. It’s a paperback, so not expensive. There’s 100 recipes in it, all are low fat, use fresh ingredients, yet are simple to make and, since it’s soup, you can play around with the seasoning, which is half the fun. I added curry powder, poultry seasoning, red pepper, garam masala. I had it both with and without the escarole. For crunch, add the escarole. For pure, rich satiny “comfort food” texture, try it without. Yum.

Lemony Chickpea and Escarole Soup

1 tsp olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
2-3 large garlic cloves, peeled and minced
2 cups cooked or canned (drained and rinses) chickpeas (garbanzo beans) (I used two cans)
4 cups no-fat chicken stock (1 box)
1 small head escarole, roughly chopped to yield about 6 cups
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice, or more, to taste

Salt, pepper, seasoning
2 tb chopped fresh parsley to garnish.

Heat oil in heavy pot, cook onion and garlic, stirring, until golden. Add chickpeas and chicken stock and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer 15-20 minutes.
Use immersion blender to blend soup thoroughly. Add chopped escarole (or not) adjust seasoning, cook 7-10 minutes longer (until escarole is tender) Stir in lemon juice. Garnish and serve with parsley.

12 comments:

Alon Perlman said...

When I was young and learning to read, I found book with Sunday Punch English humor Cartoons.
One had a Waiter standing at the window looking out and saying "Looks like rain" The corpulant Customer, Spoon over his plate looks at the waiter and comments, "Tastes like it too".
Nothing like some English humor to dry your socks from the inside out.

Its going to get thicker than pea soup in some places with hail to match.
There is a side dish easy to make, this works better with canned. Drain the canned Garbansos leave them moist roll on a plate with seasonings and bake on a tray turning till they are dry to the touch, but moist inside .Seasonings are-any- ive made multiples simultaneously
Lemon salt cumin + red peper course, or curry which contains the previous two.
In this case, given the blending that would make a great garni with chives. Slivered Celery? I saw Bagged Garbansos in the Carniceria back behind Starbucks. Great breakfast borritos.

Word verification: derach
Wont make sense untill you read the Dune trilogy by Frank Herbert.
Kawifatz Haderach is the name the reverential refer to their massiah.
It is not explaind in the book, but in hebrew it means Jumping the path(Way) It also is equivalent to Short-cut. though it has mystical connotations as well, as in the long journey suddenly shortened. Eh-la Carlos Castanuella.

Bev. De Witt-Moylan said...

Thank you for this recipe Ann. It came at the perfect time. Tried it last night sans escarole when I was short on ingredients with no desire to go into the stormy night for groceries.

With a salad it was a perfect foul weather meal to warm a poor traveler's soul after a long flight. In addition to salt and pepper I seasoned it with curry, cumin, garlic powder, onion powder, red pepper, and a little Tabasco Sauce. I will have to venture into the unknown and buy some garam masala to experiment more with this ridiculously simple concoction.

Alon, I may have had the garbanzo dish you described when I lived in Honduras. A Lebanese family (lots of Middle Easterners and Germans lived in Honduras when I was living there) hosted a wedding celebration at which they served a goat which had been stuffed with something similar to what you describe and spit roasted. Having never before heard of garbanzos, let alone consuming a goat, I was at a loss at the time to comprehend what I was eating but found the chickpea dish scrumptious. You have inspired me to try duplicating my ancient experience, since I always have a can or two of the things in my pantry. Unfortunately, I lack the goat to complete the nostalgia.

Mike Green said...

Well that is a great recipe, gonna try it as soon as I get back to my new digs in Newport, Oregon.
Been down here (Nipomo at a friends place) for a visit for the last week and It's interesting, sometimes you have to leave home to see it clearly again.
This "Storm" wouldn't even register a yawn up there.
50 mph winds? try 90 at Cape Foulweather (thanks James Cook) 10" rain wouldn't fill the gutters.
Bev, I LOVE goat, hard to get it though.
Lamb just isn't a good substitute.
Bon Apitite !

Mike Green said...

Just a thought, is the mexican market still there behind Starbucks?
They were always superfriendly to me and the carciniera (sp?) guy would probably be able to get Cabria (goat)
If your brave, try their morongo with scrambled eggs.

Churadogs said...

Alon: re the baked garbanzos, am I to assume it's a heated side dish, like a cooked vegetable and not dried out as in a crunchy snack?

and Mike Green, yeah, our "wet weather" here wouldn't hardly register up in Oregon. 90 mph winds? Yikes. Wusses, we're wusses, I guess.

Alon Perlman said...

Ann, But it has a thousand faces. Both and everything in between. And I don’t mean just because garbanzo beans look like eyes-shut, puffy cheeked cherubs with an impish cowlick (or is it an impish turned up nose). Plus, every grandma and sometimes it’s the great-uncle, have their own order of dish assembly. Every back ally kitchen in the Souk has its own smell.

There are traces of middle eastern cooking in vestiges of the Spanish empire. Garanzos fry well, bake well, can be coated with candy and dried back down.
For savory: the spicy revolves around the Curry cumin red pepper and sometimes Lemon onion Garlic variations. As all the recipes above do. For the soup you just need to reserve a small handful hit them with the spices pop them on a flat tray put on “toast” shake often and then serve when they are at the point where if you keep taking samples for scrumptious crunchiness versus soft center testing, there will be none left.
Should there be some left, apre soup, you can slow bake or air dry to the point of nuttiness or powderiness desired.

Mikey G. Keep posting from el norte please.
Yes, in the inner corner behind starbucks, had a Chorrizo breakfast burrito there last week. Huge and reasonably priced.
They also sell Dry Garbanzo Beans, carnitas by the pound.
If you havn’t left the area yet take a pass through and pick up one el pastor. Should last-ya till Atascadero where there is a pretty good one in a very small stand/mini restaurant.
Coming back from the coastal tea party via san diego ( dodging Tumbleweeds on the ventura highway!), picked up a santa maria, (mall at Broadway and Donovan) goat meat burrito, ate it last night. The guy called it Chivo. Birria for beef, I forget the lamb. The Carniceria in LO may carry goat meat occasionally.

mom said...

if i could GET escarole in this god-forsaken place, i'd make this soup. and i don't even LIKE soup.
i'm gonna think about a substitute. i don't think iceberg lettuce will do.

Mike Green said...

Subs for escarole, endive, swiss chard, mustard greens.

Churadogs said...

Donna, might try it without any greenery. i did and it's lovely.

Mike Green, yeah, swiss chard would likely come closest to escarole in texture and flavor, which isn't much, but is some crunch?

Alon Perlman said...

How about miner's lettace, grows in many yards.

Mike Green said...

Dandelions are all over.
Tasty too.
Oh heck, LO is chock a block full of great wild food.
Must be somthin in the water.

Churadogs said...

I think the notion of the escarole was that it's sturdy enough to hold some crunch, whereas spinach or miner's lettuce or regular lettuce would go all soggy? Swiss chard would hold some crunch, but as I said, I think I prefer it plain.