Vegan Greek Chickpea Soup - Ρεβυθοσουπα

Yes! Finally I got to make this legendary Greek dish. My mom made this often when I lived in Greece and I loved it. It is simple and the taste is amazing. Did I say that it is vegan? This dish can be made leaving the chickpeas whole as I did here, or you can make a smooth version of it by using an immersion blender. Feel free to add a diced tomato if you would like.

Start by soaking a bag of dry chickpeas overnight or you can use two cans of beans, but the amazing taste and texture will not be there. Please use dry beans!

The ingredients are few and they are:

• One lb dry beans;
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil;
• two medium shallots, diced;
• 1 tablespoon salt;
• Juice of two lemons. The lemons we had in the refrigerator weren't at their prime, but I used them because I was too lazy to go to the supermarket again. If you have better lemons, one of them would suffice.

Do you know how to choose "good" olive oil? There will be a post for that soon, but for now use one that is extra virgin.

Here are the ingredients I will be using.

I soaked the chickpeas overnight and drained the water they soaked in before I started to cook them.



The shallots are ready too.

I am using my new dutch oven that I named Bertha. It's a Lodge 7.5 quart enameled cast iron dutch oven. Bertha weighs about 15 lbs and she is a heavy one. Once you begin to use this dutch oven, you'll fall in love with it. The heat is distributed perfectly and it's a pleasure cooking with it.

Here she is, looking pretty, my little Bertha.

Here are the drained chickpeas. I added enough cold water to cover them and set the heat to high.

As soon as the chickpeas begin to boil, you will see a thick layer of foam. Slowly and carefully I moved the dutch oven near the sink and I drained the chickpeas. I added a little cold water and drained that too. Then, I added enough cold water to cover the chickpeas and brought them to a boil.

Here is a picture of the foamy mixture.

Here are the chickpeas in their new, clean water.

I added the shallots and gave it a big stir and then I covered Bertha.

After the chickpeas started to boil, I lowered the heat to a simmer and set the timer to 30 minutes.

After the 30 minutes, I  added the salt, the olive oil, gave it a big stir, covered Bertha and set the timer to 30 minutes.

Look at this hungry squirrel in our backyard eating the remains from the bird seed wreath that we had there just yesterday. We hung the wreath that was shaped like a Bundt on a metal pole. It was about 8-9 inches in diameter and three inches thick, but it lasted just a few hours. An animal got to it and, well, it's not there anymore. No one knows what happened to the wreath.

Here is the final product. I like the chickpeas this way, but some people may like it better if the soup was blended smooth. For that, use an immersion blender.

The taste is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G and you've got to try this dish!

Happy cooking!