Sunday, October 28, 2012

Chicken & Chickpea Soup

Sorry to miss you last weekend, which was when this soup was actually simmering away.  It took a bit more time than I had planned on, which didn't leave time to blog about it after enjoying it.  We have been having a gorgeous fall, although we are already bereft of colorful leaves, only a few weeks after they began.  We had a couple of days of heavy rain, which knocked all but the hardiest leaves from their limbs, and I think the frost the past two nights has done the rest of them in.  Every so often upon a walk one will come upon a tree still holding nearly all its leaves, the lone standout in a copse of bare branches, but even those are nearly gone now.  All summer we felt as though we lived in a treehouse (albeit a very modern, well-equipped tree house) because our front windows look out into the branches of a beautiful maple.  We also had a nice tree line at the back of our backyard, shielding us from the yards of our neighbors to the west.  Now we draw the curtains as night falls, since we are otherwise on display given the lack of a protective leafy veil. 
We are enjoying almost all the other aspects of the seasonal change, though.  The crisp mornings, geese flying overhead, and autumnal flavors - most especially pumpkin.  So last week we made a soup containing pumpkin chunks.  Up to this point, neither of us had cooked/baked with a real pumpkin.  We were canned pumpkin lovers, and counted ourselves among those who enjoy carving a big jack-o-lantern in the fall, but never had we wrestled with a little eating pumpkin.  And wrestle we did!  We are proud to have very sharp knives.  In fact, when we were first married and using this knife set, I cut myself on them so often that I bought the nice, waterproof, antibacterial-salve-in-the-pad bandaids so that I could cover a cut and keep cooking.  We can slice through a butternut squash with barely a thought to its tough rind.  And yet, this pumpkin nearly bested us.  It took a good half hour and three different knives to chop off the top and halve the body.  Then we were unable to peel it (or unwilling, as the previous half hour had worn us down), so we crossed our fingers and stuck it in the oven for 30 minutes at 400.  This actually worked beautifully - the pumpkin separated from the skin and softened enough to make dicing it easy.  So, with that background, I will give you the recipe for the Chicken & Chickpea soup that the diced pumpkin was to join.

You have to make this soup in two parts.  Part one involves boiling chicken in spices and water to make a delicious broth.  The recipe calls for a whole 3 pound chicken, cut into pieces, or else just some pieces of chicken weighing about 3 pounds.  I did 3 pounds of thighs, since that was what I could find at the store.  Put it in a stockpot with 8 cups water, 1 onion cut in wedges, 2 smashed cloves of garlic, 1 cinnamon stick (or 1 tsp. ground), 1 tsp. whole cardamom pods (or 1/2 tsp. ground), 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg.  Simmer this together for about an hour, or until the chicken is tender.  Remove the chicken and pull out the spices if you used whole.  Strain the broth, pushing the onion and garlic against the sieve so their juices join the broth.  Chill the broth and skim off the fat.  (This part took quite a bit longer than I had expected.  May I suggest doing this step the day before you want to eat the soup?  That will give the broth plenty of time to chill.  Then you can skim the fat and start step 2 on the day you want to eat.)

For part two, first skim the fat off the broth if you haven't already, and put the broth in a pot to reheat.  Next you'll chop up your veggies.  You'll need one diced potato, 2 cups peeled and diced pumpkin, 3 cups peeled and quartered tomatoes.  (If you are worried about peeling your tomatoes, there's a trick: Bring a pan of water to a boil.  Drop the tomatoes in a few at a time, letting them boil for maybe 1 minute.  Have a bowl of ice water standing by, and when you remove the tomatoes from the boiling water, place them immediately in the ice water.  Once they've cooled for a minute or two, you should be able to easily slide the skin right off!)  Once you have your veggies chopped, put them in the broth and add 2 cups cooked chickpeas (I used canned) and 1 Tbsp. ground turmeric.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until the veggies are tender (~20 minutes).  While the veggies are cooking, remove the chicken from the bones, cut it into small pieces, and stir it into the soup. 

Serve this with rice or couscous, and maybe a sprinkling of salt and/or hot sauce.  Delicious!  Thanks for stopping by, and be sure you come again.

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