Chickpea Soup 2

As the title implies, I always intended to post variations on this recipe - but somehow I forgot. Well, I recently thought about it again, and wanted to try (again) a variation in which lemon juice and soy sauce are added to taste. As things turned out, it also became a somewhat thicker soup, and the onion/parsley topping was done with an interesting twist.

Ingredients:
- olive oil
- 4 leeks, cleaned, sliced
- 4 cans chickpeas^[1], drained, rinsed
- 2 L (¹/₂ gallon) vegetable broth^[2]
- 4 tsp salt
- 4 tsp ground cumin
- 4 tsp brown sugar
- 0.25 L (1 cup) cream
- juice of 1 lemon
- 4 tbsp soy sauce
- bacon fat
- 6 brown onions
- bunch flat leaf parsley
- salt & pepper
- bread for serving

In a large pot, a the leek slices were sautéed in a little olive oil (until they 'collapsed' a little), then the drained, rinsed chickpeas were added together with the vegetable broth. While the soup was brought to a boil, salt, ground cumin, brown sugar, and cream was added. Once boiling the heat was reduced, the pot was covered and allowed to boil gently for 40 minutes.

While the soup was boiling, the onions were peeled, rinsed and cut in boats. The onion boats were caramelised in bacon fat, seasoned with salt and pepper and then mixed with coarsely chopped flat leaf parsley.

After boiling the soup, it was partially liquefied using an immersion blender. Finally lemon juice and soy sauce was added to taste (I ended up using all the juice of one lemon and 4 tbsp soy sauce).

The soup was served in bowls with some caramelised onions on top and bread on the side.

Apart from the added taste of the lemon juice and soy sauce the soup was quite a bit thicker than last time - not all that bad, but I might aim for somewhere between these two extremes next time.

The most interesting part was how much flavour the bacon fat imparted on the caramelised onions - I had kind of expected the bacon notes to drown out in all the other flavours, but that wasn't the case at all. I'll use that trick again, for sure.

^[1] That was 4 cans of 410 g (14.4 oz) each, giving a total of 1 kg (2 lbs 3 oz) chickpeas when drained.
^[2] I would likely have used more if I had had a larger pot.