Chickpea & Chorizo & Parsley Soup

No carrot & coriander here...

I completely mullered a pan of chickpeas the other day. I cooked them for so long they were pretty much ready made hummous by the time I remembered to drain them. My intention was to make a curry with them, but their sad soggy texture lent itself to one thing only, soup. I have a mean opinion of soup in general, for me it is for lunch, for when you're ill, to re-fuel with and warm up with, but not necessarily to excite. I find it baffling when people tell me how they made this 'amazing soup', what's that? You cooked some onions and garlic up, added veg, stock, boiled it and blended it? Well that just blows my mind. Except it doesn't. At all. This soup changed my mind a little, it's different, it has bulk and what are essentially meaty croutons (yesssss) and beats boring old leek and potato any day. It's based on a recipe from Casa Moro, I changed it to suit what I had (the original used little white beans), which was soggy chick peas, lots of them.

Amounts are quite loose, you can have it thicker or thinner, just add stock accordingly and you can make it stretch. The amounts below feed 3 ish.

Soak 375g chickpeas/cannellini beans overnight with a pinch of bicarbonate of soda (I think it stops the farts), drain, and boil in fresh water for about an hour, until you can easily squish with your fingers. When you drain them, keep the liquid you boiled them in, this will be your base. If you forget (like in a pouring the gravy down the drain moment) jut use some good stock, either way you need about 1.5ltrs of liquid*. Liquidise the beans/chickpeas in their liquid or stock, you want the consistency of double cream, so best to hold back and add more liquid if needed. Now in another large saucepan, heat about 4tbsp olive oil and fry four chopped cloves of  garlic, but be careful not to burn. Add two hand fulls of chopped flat leaf parsley, cook for another minute and add a tsp of hot paprika. Mix in the beans/chickpeas that you just wizzed up. Heat a separate small frying pan, and dry fry a good handful of chorizo (ideally cooking variety) that you have chopped up into little cubes. The oil will soon ooze out. Make them nice and crispy. Season the hell out of your soup, it can take a fair bit of salt, ladle into bowls and top with the chorizo and a generous sprinkling of more chopped parsley.

This soup will be your friend, but it might not make you friends as you may pong of garlic a bit. But who needs friends when you have meat croutons in soup?

*Yes, quantities here are more of a guide, it's soup, not rocket science.