Is it just a matter of adding more of one of the ingredients? Could you send me a spoonful?

Hhmm. Could you strain all the broth out, mash up all the ingredients, and make falafel?

I love and treasure you far too much to send you a spoonful, ike.

It has lots of garlic, which I perceived as one of the main things that makes the packaged version I like so good (the packaged also has the other ingredients I've listed, but perhaps I put too much of them.. dunno)... But falafel is a distinct possiblity. I've never tried to make it before.

What's not good about it? Taste, texture, something else?

My favorite chickpea soup is very simple, with fewer ingredients than what you have, but after the chickpeas are cooked you throw half of them in a blender (or, if you're me, you attack them with a potato masher) and then add them back into the soup and cook it down a bit more. Could something like that help? Maybe even strain off some of the broth, if it's too watery?

The taste is... too "heavy" and so is the consistency for what I had in mind. And, weirdly, the taste of the chickpeas is too "prominent" or something, though I realize that this sounds strange to say about a chickpea soup. :)

Maybe blending half of it and cooking some more will help pull it together, occhiblu... Not to make it into the soup I had in mind (this clearly just ain't gonna happen nohow!), but in terms of making it a different, but good, soup.

If the consistency and taste is too heavy then you could have been stirring it too much.

Hmmm... Check this out: Hummus Soup. Possibly interesting.

Though note that the recipe I just linked to includes no olive oil, and it's too late for that, but I wouldn't dare make it without olive oil anyway... They would kick my ass right out of Greece on the next U.S.-bound flight, naked, gagged,and hogtied in the current style.

Seanyboy, you might be right about that... the various times I've tried to make this soup, I've presoaked and not presoaked, I've cooked fast (medium rolling boil), and I've cooked slow (simmer for hours), I've tried cheap chickpeas and expensive organic ones... and I do end up thinking that it's something to do with how they treat the chickpeas themselves. In their version the chickpeas always end up with much more "integrity" - they are thoroughly cooked, but quite distinct and "clean"... and the broth is nicely clear with no little pea-particles floating around, and not thick at all.

Is this one of those things that your mother-in-law and all the old ladies in the village will remember forever? Suddenly go silent as you approach. Point and talk about you as you walk past, because your poor husband can't even count on his floozy American wife to give him a proper bowl of Revithia. Now if he'd married a nice Greek girl ...

Hee! Surely they would if they ever got the chance to be exposed to the HORROR. But lucky for me, it's just our dirty little secret. But every time we visit my husband's parents, his mom does send us home with spanakopita and tyropita, so I'm pretty sure she definitely knows that these items are waaaaaaay out of my league!

Maybe for the frozen kind they add rinsed, ready-cooked chickpeas to a light soup base at a relatively late stage, & therefore not so much of the starches from the peas get into the broth: it could be that it just freezes better that way.

…not that I can claim any expertise about cooking with chickpeas—the few times I’ve attempted channa masala, the results have always been disappointingly lacklustre. If I’m left with an abundance of cooked chickpeas, I’ll often just mix some with a smidgeon of readymade curry-paste (e.g. Sharwood’s or Patak’s), making for a snack, which, annoyingly, I seem to enjoy better than the ‘from scratch’ chickpea curries I’ve lovingly laboured over for hours.

Oh! I bet you're right about the method, misteraitch!

Even though I've sworn off ever trying to make this soup again... I might have to attempt it. o n e... m o r e... t i m e.

Once the pain and humiliation from this effort have faded.

I think I've got it. Here's the tip-off:

In their version the chickpeas always end up with much more "integrity" - they are thoroughly cooked, but quite distinct and "clean"... and the broth is nicely clear with no little pea-particles floating around, and not thick at all.


In industrial/restaurant cooking, a lot of times, ingredients are cooked separately and then combined at the last minute. Because you're describing a soup where all ingredients are well blended, but chickpease aren't soggy or disintegrating, I suspect that they are cooked seperately until they are starting to be soft enough to eat but still with some firm resistance. Then, no doubt, they're added to the can, and they finish their cooking while you reheat the soup. This is typically how restaurant bean soups that aren't purees are made. It lets the beans keep their integrity and be al dente, not mushy.

So I'd try assembling/simmering the other ingredients until you get the broth flavor just as you like it, then add the chickpeas that you've cooked seperately at the last moment.

Or...what misteraitch said.

(Reading comprehension apparently low today)

I love how overwrought you are about this soup failure, taz. :-)

I'm pretty awful at soups. Vegetable puree soups, I like, but anything that doesn't involve all the ingredients getting mashed together at the end is generally beyond me. (Oh, and avgolemono, though I'm a little crushed my mother never gave me her recipe, because hers was much better. Though I think it was because she never used a set recipe.)

I used to live near a deli/restaurant that would sell quarts of their amazingly wonderful chicken soup with matzoh balls, thus saving me the trouble of spending hours simmering a chicken soup that was destined to turn out badly. I really, really miss that place.

Heh. I think it's August frenzy, occhiblu. I'm waiting so hard for it to get autumn, I'm going a little STIR crazy.

So! Here's what I ended up doing: I cooked it down a bit and pureed half of it as you suggested... and then, since I remembered we had some very nice tzatziki in the house (which is basically herbed yogurt), I added some of that in the mix as well... and it came out quite delicous. In fact, it came good enough to make the very same thing another time - but on purpose. :)

However, the next time I have a hankering to try the broth-based soup again, I'll go with the misteraitch/miko method, and I bet it will finally work.

Yay! Soup success. Congratuations!

Yeah, I agree with misteraitch and Miko, and was going to suggest the exact same thing.

Glad the soup turned out well, after all, though!

Your story inspired me to make soup for lunch. Yay, soup!

Or, you could buy the frozen soup in secret and tell everyone you made it yourself.