Tuscan Cooking, Pasta e Ceci, Chickpea and Pasta Soup

I have to say out of all the Tuscan soups we’ve had, this has to be at the top of the list!

Our son and daughter-in-law gave us Jamie Oliver’s cook book Jamie's Italy
for Christmas and we found the recipe for Pasta e Ceci which we’d had in Florence.

Although the Tuscans don’t normally use tomatoes in this recipe, we did have it with them in Florence.

Instead of using chicken stock we used ham, only because we wanted to make another Italian soup.

I loved this soup, and with the freezing cold weather we have at the moment, this goes down very well with a lump of warm crusty bread.

Here’s the recipe:

Serves 4
Prep Time 10 mins
Cooking Time 35 mins
Ingredients

• 1 Small onion
• 1 large celery stick
• 1 Large clove of garlic
• 2 X 400g Tins chick peas, drained and rinsed
• 1 X 400g Tin chopped tomatoes
• 500ml Ham or chicken stock
• Small sprig of rosemary
• Handful of basil, chopped
• Handful of flat leaf parsley, chopped
• 100g pasta (see Cook’s tips)
• Rock salt and ground black pepper

Method

• You can either finely chop the onion, celery and garlic or blitz them in a food processor
• Heat a little extra virgin olive oil in a heavy casserole dish
• Add the onion, celery and garlic
• Season with rock salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Gently cook for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently
• Add the chopped tomatoes and sprig of rosemary
• Pour in 500ml of ham or chicken stock
• Bring to the boil and add the chick peas
• Simmer for 30 minutes with the lid on, stirring occasionally
• Strain the soup, reserving half the chick peas and tomatoes in the sieve
• Pour the remaining chick peas and tomatoes back into the soup and bring to the boil
• Blitz the soup with a hand held stick blender or use a food processor
• The soup now becomes a creamy mixture
• Add the other half of the chick peas and tomatoes along with the pasta (see Cook’s tips)
• Bring back to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes until the pasta is al dente
• At this point, if the soup is to thick, you can add more boiling water if necessary (your choice)
• Stir in a handful of chopped basil and flat leaf parsley
• Remove the sprig of rosemary
• Season to taste
• Serve with warm crusty bread

Cook's tips

• Any kind of pasta can be used, but the smaller the better

Equipment

• Large flame proof casserole dish
• Hand held stick blender or food processor

Shopping List

• 1 Small onion
• 1 large celery stick
• 1 Large clove of garlic
• 2 X 400g Tins chick peas
• 1 X 400g Tin chopped tomatoes
• Small sprig of rosemary
• Handful of basil
• Handful of flat leaf parsley
• 100g pasta
• Rock salt and ground black pepper