The blend of chickpeas, turmeric, ginger, and homemade chicken bone broth supports a healing shoulder.
It’s been our practice (hasn’t it been everyone’s?) to punctuate our biweekly trip to Costco with a fly-by of the roast chicken case for our $5 bird. The pup loves it, the cats love it, and we love it—twice. After picking off chickeny bits for a couple of days, we toss the carcass in the stock pot to ensure we capture every bit of goodness from those worthy bones.
I like to season each stock with a twist, based on the soup that will come from it, and this week, knowing S has just marked a month since his rotator cuff repair surgery, I planned for a ginger, garlic, and turmeric forward soup. With its ingredients lending both inflammation and immune support, the soup promises to support the tendon healing that he seeks after the surgery.
Browsing through the cupboard, I found a half pack of dried chickpeas ready to soak (for one hour under a pint of boiling water), and galangal, ground ginger, fenugreek, Aleppo pepper, and thyme. In from the veggie drawer? Carrots, onion, fresh ginger and turmeric root, and a few mushrooms in a chunky dice.
After the stock had simmered for an afternoon—necessary to extract all of the gelatin from those bones—I strained it and readied it for the soup. I got a good browning on the onion in a bit of the stock and some olive oil, then tossed in carrots, deglazed with rose wine from our box in the fridge, and crisped up the mushrooms before adding garlic, turmeric, and salt and pepper.
Ready for the chickpeas? Yes, after pouring in the roughly 6 cups of broth, and bringing it to simmer, I put in the “beans” (you could add their soaking water if you wanted) and then added my umamis: soy sauce, red (awase) miso, and a dollop of chili crisp.
After an hour of simmering, I checked the state of the beans for tenderness, and found them to my liking. But the soup was missing an undertone, an earthiness that would give it depth. The chickpeas themselves sparked my winning idea: a couple tablespoons of tahini. Indeed, the sesame paste gave it a barest hint of subtle nuttiness, and a much needed bass line.
Serving it to my husband at his nest on the couch, I could veritably sense his tendons knitting back together with each mouthful.
Savoury Chickpea Soup with Turmeric, Ginger, and Garlic
Serves 6
For the stock:
- 1 roast chicken carcass
- 1 onion, peeled and rough chopped
- 1 carrot, roughly chopped
- Leek tops, roughly chopped
- Fennel tops, roughly chopped
- ginger root slices
- olive oil
- bay leaf, thyme sprig
Sauté onion and carrots in a 6-quart stockpot with a couple tablespoons of olive oil until starting to brown, about 5 minutes at medium high heat. Place leek tops and fennel tops on the onion and carrot mixture, then place the chicken carcass on top of the vegetables. Pour over roughly 4 quarts of water or enough to mostly cover the carcass (the breastbone may stick up out of the water; that’s okay). Add the ginger root, bay leaf, and thyme sprig. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer, skimming off foam periodically if you want a clearer broth. Simmer for at least one hour, or more depending on how rich you like your stock.
For the soup:
- 6 cups chicken stock (homemade as above or storebought)
- 1 onion, peeled and chopped into a 1/2 inch dice
- 1-2 carrots, peeled and sliced into half moons
- 4-5 cremini mushrooms, chopped into 1/2 pieces
- 6-8 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped (but not minced unless you hate garlic)
- 1 inch turmeric root, peeled and finely chopped, or 1 T ground turmeric
- 1 inch ginger root, peeled and finely chopped or 1 T ground ginger
- 2 cups dried chickpeas, soaked for at least 2 hours, or 2 cans of precooked chickpeas (no soaking required)
- 2 T soy sauce
- 2 T miso paste
- 1 T chili crisp
- 2 T tahini paste
- 1 T Aleppo pepper
- 1/2 t fenugreek
- 1/2 t galangal
- Bay leaf
- Olive oil
- Rose or white wine
- Salt and black pepper to taste
- Sauté onions and carrots in about 2 T of olive oil until beginning to brown, about 5-6 minutes. Add in mushrooms, and continue browning as they release their liquid. Add garlic, and continue for 1 more minute, then deglaze the pan with a splash of white or rose wine (whatever you have in a box in the fridge to drink is fine).
- Stir in ginger, turmeric, and allow aromas to bloom for 1 minute, then fold in chickpeas.
- After the above ingredients have combined, pour in the chicken stock. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, and keep there with reduced heat to medium, and then low.
- Add soy sauce, miso, chili crisp, Aleppo, fenugreek, galangal, and a bay leaf, and stir to combine. Salt and black pepper can be added here in modest amounts, knowing you’ll make final salt corrections after another hour of cooking time.
- Let the soup come together and the chickpeas soften further for about 1 hour.
- Taste the soup and stir in the tahini paste. Allow to simmer for 15 minutes more.
- Taste the soup and correct the salt and spice levels to your liking.
- Serve in deep bowls with bread and butter and Marmite if you’re us, or whatever you like to accompany a savoury soup.
