hello! They settled on an old recipe. Sometimes older recipes aren’t written as clearly as they should be, or something needs explaining. If something seems confusing or has a question, send me an email and I’ll help!
Every year I see patterns in my cooking style. Some years are heavy on flavor, others are heavy on technique. For this year, this soupy chickpea and emmer dish embodies what I’m looking for: not overwhelming, but strong on flavor and comfort. This dish is especially made with the help of a few useful notes.
Onions and cooking time
If you look back at the website archives, I’m a little embarrassed at how many times I called for the onion to cook for minutes! In some applications, this doesn’t matter, but when we want to develop flavor with just a few ingredients, cooking the onion for a long time is key. Longer cooking does not mean caramelizing; Just give it a little color.
For these onion soups, I let the onions cook for about 20 minutes. The onions will turn a nice golden color and develop a bit of flavor, and if you happen to go and develop a few chunks, that’s fine.
Brothy Chickpeas is all about the sauce.
The next way we mask the taste is by making sure our sauce is strong. For me, that’s the liquid I use for cooking. Dried chickpeas. It’s heavy on the onions, and I let the onions simmer until they were nice. If you are not cooking from dry, drain the canned chickpeas and use a fragrant vegetable broth. Store bought or homemade is fine.
Fat, more fat.
Foods can feel a little deep as they develop the flavor. Using a little more fat can help with this. In these onion soups, I prepare the onion in a thin layer olive oilAnd I use a little olive oil in the process of cooking the beans. You don’t need to go overboard, but I recommend going liberal with the olive oil in this dish.
- 2-3 A spoonful of soup olive oil
- 1 Medium yellow onion (cut off)
- ½ Tea spoon Kosher salt
- 2 Tea spoons Rice vinegar
- 1 1/2 Cups (315 G) Cooked chickpeas
- 2 Cups (480 G) Bean or vegetable soup
- 1 Cup (200 G) Ripe pearls or whole emmer/farro (or really any good, slightly chewy cereal)
- Grilled parmesan cheese (to finish)
- Black pepper (to finish)
-
Heat the olive oil in a medium braiser or skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and salt, and cook for 20 minutes or so until the onion is golden. If the red onion starts to sprout, reduce the heat a little and continue cooking. When the onion is cooked enough, the olive oil will begin to meld slightly. Pour the vinegar, scrape the brown bits from the bottom of the pan.
-
Add the chickpeas, broth, and potatoes. Bring to a boil and cook for a few minutes to allow the flavors to meld and heat through as needed. Add more broth or water if you find that the dish is not sauce enough. After roasting, remove from heat, stir in enough parmesan and black pepper to make it happy and eat. I typically use about ½ cup of grated Parmesan, plus more.
vegetables; I’ve left this recipe veg-agnostic because it’s strong with many others. As you may have noticed, I used some charred/roasted broccoli for one of the pictures. However, roasted squash, baked sweet potatoes, wilted spinach, cooked corn, or roasted eggplant will all work.