Today is the beginning of soup season at Oliveology. If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you must know by now how much we love cooking with colourful ingredients that are in season. Today, following some delicious soups we’ve made in the past, we are making a hearty chickpea soup with pumpkin.
Our chickpeas are harvested every year in organic farms in northern Greece. We use them to make our own hummus, with the addition of nutty tahini, but also in the traditional revithada soup.
As with many of our soups, we love using one of our flavoured olive oils as a finishing oil. Our olive oil with apples, walnuts, cinnamon, honey and sage is great in this soup, but also our olive oil with walnuts, fennel, rosemary and oregano. So choose your own adventure!
Serves 2 as main or 4 as a starter (with leftovers)
100g chickpeas
1 large red onion, cut in half
800g pumpkin
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp mixed spices (we used ¼ tsp each smoked paprika, cumin, turmeric and chai spice mix)
1.5lt water or vegetable stock
dried thyme, salt (to taste)
apple oil or walnut oil (to serve)
The night before soak the chickpeas in water.
The morning after drain and place them in a medium-sized pot with plenty of fresh water and half of the onion.
Boil until tender but not mushy, around 1-1.5 hours. Drain and set aside.
Peel the pumpkin and cut in small bite-sized pieces. Finely chop the other onion half.
In a medium-sized pot and over medium heat add the olive oil and onion. Gently fry the onion until caramelised. Add the spices and stir for one minute.
Add the pumpkin and toss everything together. Finally add the water or stock. Season with thyme and salt. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer until the pumpkin is tender, around 30 minutes.
Add the cooked chickpeas, taste and season with salt if needed. Cook for another 10 minutes.
Serve with apple or walnut oil.
