Chickpea Flour Soup

Kind of like the “OMG THIS SMELLS SO BAD — here, YOU smell it!” compulsion, when I see a recipe that sounds strange and possibly gross my reaction is basically “Ewwwwwyuckweird I should totally make that.” From the moment I read the words “chickpea flour soup,” this bloggery was inevitable.

This recipe had two elements that made it tantalizingly unappetizing to me. 1) The word flour was in the title. I don’t know about you, but when I hear the word “flour” I’m not immediately reaching for a spoon. 2) I found it in a section designated “5-Minute Soups.”

I hear a lot of people say they do their best thinking in the shower. I take superfast showers — in and out in five minutes or less — and that doesn’t really suffice. I like a good bubble bath, but that’s for reading, not thinking. Everyone needs their thinking time, though, and mine comes while cooking. My friend Priya recently told me she only likes making things that require at least an hour and every pot in her kitchen (paraphrasing). A five minute soup? That sounds like a shower. Boring and utilitarian. Yuck.

(I realize I’m making myself sound kinda dirty right now but this blog is about the TRUTH (no it isn’t)).

Despite it’s brevity, this recipe intrigued me for a few reasons. For one thing, I happened to already have chickpea flour in my pantry (I’m lazy! Yay!); and for another, I’m a lil in love with chickpeas (don’t tell Logan, you guys). I’ve gotten into a habit of making two batches of hummus every week (right now I’m working on demolishing some jalapeño-cilantro hummus that is srsly da bomb (what? who said that?)), which is probably overkill already. I love overkill (if that wasn’t already obvious from the fact that this is my 104^th blog entry about soup), so clearly I want more chickpea-based stuff in my life.  I’M BONKERS FOR ‘BANZOS (somebody take this computer away from me immediately).

Apparently this is originally a Provençal soup called fournade, which, hey-- that’s a cool word without much web presence that doesn’t exist in Webster’s Third. So, let’s call it that and hope that’s really what it means and pretend we’re smart and worldly and stuff. Bonus Annoying Points if you say it in a super-exaggerated Alex-Trebekian French accent in the middle of a sentence. 

I unFrenched/Californiafied it, so maybe it isn’t even fournade anymore (if it was in the first place).

The most open and sharing conversation I’ve ever had with my brother was at a little Middle Eastern joint in a strip mall in Fresno, across from a faux Egyptian temple to plastic surgery or something. Paul told me things I didn’t know about life and love and family over a plate of hummus  topped with a fresh salsa. I’d been reminiscing about that day yesterday (I’m getting nostalgic in my old age), and when I saw my favorite Frontera salsa in the fridge I thought Hey, why not?

And you know what? It worked. This soup was neither gross nor weird (really giving you the hard sell here). It’s pretty much the smoothest; it’s so creamy and comforting while not being terribly unhealthy. And it tastes like hummus with salsa, so it has that going for it. I’m excited to eat leftovers for lunch tomorrow (a good test of whether I liked it). And it really doesn’t take much longer than five minutes, if that’s a positive thing for anyone.

Without further ado, I present to you the cheapest, easiest, fastest soup in the West (Mid-).

I use way too many parentheses (remember what I said about overkill? (dangit I did it again)).

Chickpea Flour Soup
Adapted (barely) from Radically Simple by Rozanne Gold
Serves 4

GET THIS STUFF

2 cloves garlic
¼ c olive oil
2 t cumin
1 c chickpea flour
¼ c (or more to taste) your favorite salsa
snipped chives
lemon wedges

DO THIS WITH IT

Bring 6 cups of water to a boil.
Add garlic to the water through a garlic press, along with oil, cumin and 1 teaspoon salt—boil for 2 minutes.
Slowly whisk in chickpea flour and keep whisking until smooth. Boil for 3 minutes while whisking.
Stir in salsa.
K, you’re done.
To serve, garnish with chives and a lemon wedge. Squeeze the lemon into the soup before eating.