Lemony white bean soup
Ingredients
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped2 celery stalks, chopped
Zest and juice of 1 lemon, divided
6 garlic cloves, chopped
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
8 ounces white beans, soaked overnight and drained
1 quart broth, or more
2 tablespoons butter
Parsley for garnish
Method
Pulse onion, celery, lemon zest and garlic in a food processor until chopped fine. Heat olive oil in a large heavy pot. Cook onion mixture and kosher salt until vegetables soften. Add beans and broth and cook, partially covered, until beans are tender. The original recipe suggests this would take 1 to 1½ hours. Pretty sure it took me nearly 2½ hours and I had to keep adding broth to keep it from turning into just cooked beans, so allow some leeway for both the time and the amount of broth. Add butter and lemon juice and serve garnished with parsley.Rating: This soup had a nice bright flavor with the lemon, garlic and butter really coming through. But while I liked that aspect, it wasn't going to make it into the keeper pile because of a few knocks against it: There was such a disconnect between the clear broth and the beans with seemingly nothing to tie the two together. Plus, it's not the lookiest of dishes. And it really took a hit on the kitchen time ROI meter, since from start to finish time it takes a lot of cook attention and yielded a very scant 4 servings. If I'm going to spend that much time on a soup, it's good to have the leftovers to make it seem worthwhile.
Still, I really liked that flavor, so I tried again:
Lemony bean soup, Take 2
Note: After soaking beans overnight and draining them, I
placed them in a slow cooker with one small onion, quartered, some lemon pepper
seasoning and 1 teaspoon salt. I covered the beans with enough water to cover
by a couple of inches and cooked them on low for 4 to 6 hours until tender.
Ingredients
2 medium onions, chopped
3 celery sticks, chopped
Zest and juice of 2 lemons, divided
12 garlic cloves, chopped
2 teaspoons kosher salt
3 tablespoons olive oil
16 ounces white beans, soaked overnight and cooked until tender, divided
1¾ cup broth
2 tablespoons butter
Parsley for garnish
Method
Pulse onions, celery, lemon zest and garlic in a food
processor until finely chopped. Heat olive oil in large heavy pot. Cook onion
mixture with salt until vegetables are softened. While onions cook, puree 1 cup of the
cooked beans in the same food processor bowl. Add beans, bean puree and broth
to pot and cook for 30 minutes to allow flavors to blend. Add butter and lemon
juice and salt and lemon pepper to taste. Serve garnished with parsley.
Rating: This was fine out of the gate, but absolutely stellar the next day when flavors had time to blend and it brought out the amazing double zing of lemon and garlic. The slight added creaminess of pureed beans tied it together nicely, and making the beans ahead and then just adding them to the soup when I was ready to make it made my perceived invested time factor go way down. Yes, I know you have to cook the beans in advance, but in a slow cooker I barely have to pay attention so I can mentally discount that effort, so for me it counts as less time. Plus, it serves 8 quite reasonably.
Lemon chickpea orzo soup
Ingredients
Method
Heat oil over medium heat. Cook onion and carrots until
onion has softened. Add garlic and cook a minute more. Add the broth and/or
water. Bring to a boil. Stir in orzo and garbanzo beans. Reduce heat and boil
gently until orzo is tender. (I found it took close to 15 minutes.)
Turn off heat. Stir in tahini and lemon juice to taste. Add
spinach and stir to wilt. Add fresh dill to taste and season with salt and
pepper. Serves 8 reasonably well.
Rating: Quite nice, and no significant tinkering needed. I had wound up accidentally upping the tahini amount because I got a bit carried away when measuring and was too lazy to try to feed it back into the jar. Definitely better looking than the other bean soup, with more cheerful color to help counteract winter on a day when we woke up to fresh snow, it started snowing at 10 a.m., and wasn't forecast to stop for a full day. There's a nice creaminess from the tahini, color from the carrots and spinach, and just a slight bit of heft from the orzo. Better ROI on kitchen time, since it relies on canned chickpeas, which in this case was just fine.
Chickpea soup with herb oil and feta
Adapted from “Eating the Greek Way,” by Dr. Fedon Alexander Lindberg
Ingredients
1¾ cup garbanzo beans
1 large onion, chopped
3 tablespoons olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon cornstarch
3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
¼ cup olive oil
1 large handful of mixed herbs (I used parsley, lemon balm, thyme, tarragon and
oregano)
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
Feta chunks for garnish
Method
Soak beans in enough water to cover overnight. Drain and
rinse.
Heat olive oil in a large heavy pot over medium low heat.
Cook until onions are softened. Add drained beans and add enough water to cover
by 2 inches. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until chickpeas are
tender. The recipe suggested about 1½ hours. I cooked them for 2¼ and in
retrospect wished I’d cooked them even longer, so allow plenty of time.
Mix cornstarch and lemon juice in a small bowl. Stir into
soup and add parsley. Remove a couple of large ladles of the soup to a glass
bowl. Process with a stick blender until it’s sort of pulpy-chunky. Stir back
into soup.
To make herb oil, in a small food processor or blender,
combine olive oil, herbs and Parmesan to make a loose pesto.
Serve soup garnished with feta chunks and a swirl of the
herb oil. Serves 6-ish as a side, 4 as a main course.
Rating: Nice flavor, although not as brightly lemony as the other two, despite using lemon balm in the herb mix. It's fairly mild, and I did wonder whether I might have liked garlic in the herb oil, but there's really nothing wrong with it as is. The feta and herb oil work well with it and make it a bit lookier than it would be otherwise. My only real nit was that the soup really could have benefited from softer chickpeas than I achieved in a rather lengthy cooking time. They certainly yielded to a fork test, but this soup really needs them to be on softer side. Tempted to try making this into a crockpot recipe so I can more readily outwait it.
To be clear, I would be happy to be presented with any of these bowls of soup, but in some cases I might be happier if I didn't have to make it.
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