One of the few things I love about winter is that I can eat more hot soups! I love soups. I enjoy mixing all kind of different vegetables, herbs and spices together coming up with a tasty, creamy hot dish which is not very heavy and I can mix with lovely goat cheese, crème fraîche, yogurt, lime, lemon or more... Rich soups like Ash-s and minestrone are a big part of Iranian culture, we have lots of different Ash-s made with herbs, legumes and spices and usually as we do not have lots of choice of cheese, we use Kashkor fat yogurt to eat the Ash with. In this recipe I used marjoram and chickpeas which are very common in Iranian cooking as well as tomato sauce and lime. I added a goat cheese which some types of it can be very similar to Kashk. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Serves 4 People:
Ingredients:
- 1 small onion
- 2 x 400 gram tinned chopped tomatoes
- 400 gram water
- 2 x 400 gram tinned chickpeas, drained, or around 4 large handfuls soaked and cooked chickpeas
- 2 sticks fresh marjoram
- 1 fresh chili chopped (optional)
- 1/4 teaspoon chili powder
- 1/2 teaspoon cajun seasoning
- salt
- pepper
- 2 cups of milk
- a knob of butter
- extra virgin olive oil
- lime
- goat cheese or greek yogurt
Method:
- Start with placing a pan on the medium-low heat, add the whole onion, the 2 tinned of tomato and 1 tomato tinned of water into the pan, bring to boil, when starts boiling add the chickpeas, fresh chopped marjoram, chopped fresh chili, chili powder and cajun seasoning, mix well, cover and leave to cook on low heat for half an hour.
- Season with salt and pepper, then bring to high heat for 2-3 minutes then turn the heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes, then using a hand-mixer blend until smooth. Pour in the milk, bring just back to the boil, then turn off the heat, add a knob of butter and cover for 5-10 minutes.
- Serve with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and lime. You can also add some extra goat cheese or greek yogurt into it. Enjoy.