Pasta and chickpea soup

Rating: 3.5/5. From 11 votes.
Please wait...
Print

Pasta and chickpea soup

This dish is lighter than it sounds, but is satisfying enough to have as a one-course meal with bread to dip into the bowl. It is a hit on our cooking courses in Italy, particularly the vegetarian ones.

  • Prep Time: 0 hours
  • Cook Time: 0 hours
  • Total Time: 2 hours 30 minutes
  • Yield: 4

Ingredients

  • 250g/ 1/2lb dried chickpeas
  • A pinch of little flour
  • A few small pieces of kombu seaweed (optional)
  • 2 large sprigs of rosemary
  • 3 cloves garlic

Instructions

  1. Soak the chickpeas overnight in plenty of cold water and a tablespoon of flour (to help make the chickpeas more digestible).
  2. Rinse well and cook until tender (2 hours approx) in twice their volume of cold water, adding the seaweed (also to improve digestibility) and whole garlic cloves to the pot.
  3. Put aside 2 ladlefuls of whole chickpeas, remove the garlic and seaweed and puree the rest of the chickpeas and water.
  4. In a large pot, gently fry a sprig of rosemary in a good swirl (2-3 tablespoons) of olive oil, until the rosemary has softened and released its aroma.
  5. Add the chickpea puree and the whole chickpeas to the pot. Bring to the boil.
  6. Add a little pasta (50g /1.5 oz) per person is sufficient). Ditalini is the shape most used in Italy for soups like this.
  7. Strip the leaves off the other sprig of rosemary. Mince finely.
  8. When the pasta is cooked, stir in the fresh minced rosemary.
  9. Serve dressed with raw extra virgin olive oil and black pepper.

Did you make this recipe?

Share a photo and tag us — we can't wait to see what you've made!