Bean, Pasta & Chicken Soup: the Final Soup Recipe this Year within my 'Recipes in Images' Portfolio.

This soup is more like a stew really, but lets pretend its a soup!  It is absolutely delicious and I love it.  

This will be the last of my winter soup recipes for now.  There will be more in the autumn when 'hearty' soups are needed.  

Bean, Pasta and Chicken Soup

You have to begin this soup the day before by reconstituting the dried beans.  I use whatever beans I have available, in this case - chickpeas and kidney beans.

Remember the tip of adding a teaspoon of baking powder to the boiling water you reconstitute the beans with?  Do it, it is a great tip which really works; you reduce the beans cooking time by half! 

The beans cook at different times so I always soak  and cook them separately.  Make sure you rinse them very well before you cook them; you don't want the slightly 'soapy' aftertaste in your soup from the Baking Soda through not rinsing the beans sufficiently.

The next day, when the beans have reconstituted, put in separate pans, cover with cold water, and simmer until soft. When soft, strain and put to one side for later.

Make sure you have some good chicken stock to make this soup with.  If you followed my post on 'roasting a chicken', you will have really fantastic stock to make this soup with.

Dice up which ever vegetables you want to use in your soup.  Make sure they are of an even size about the same as the beans.

It does not matter which vegetables go into this soup.  However, you must use: garlic, onion, celery, carrot and leek - the base of all my soups.  I always add chilli to taste and fresh grated ginger, as I love the warmth they bring to this soup.

Put into your soup pan with a little olive oil and sweat the vegetables a little to begin the cooking process.

If there is a little layer of fat on top of your stock, scrape that off into your soup pan instead of olive oil.  It will enhance the chicken flavour somewhat - not that it needs it.

Plonk in your very jellied stock, and allow to melt.  Top your pan up with boiling water from the kettle.  

Don't forget to scrape out your 'jellied stock' bowl fully, you musn't leave any of that scrumptious chicken essence behind.

Cook until your vegetables soften.  Add seasoning to taste at this point.

Add your cooked beans  

 

and dried pasta shells.

If you can get them, the very small pasta shells go particularly well in this soup.  Put as many in as you wish,  The more you put in, the 'heartier' this soup will be.  I love pasta so put quite a bit in - about 6 good handfulls.  You just put in what you like.

Cook until the pasta is soft, and the beans have absorbed a little of the stock.

Re-check the seasoning once the pasta is cooked.   Top up with more boiling water if you do not want your soup to be so thick you can stand your spoon up in it!

Pasta does require quite a bit of salt or everything tastes insipid.

Once everything in the soup is cooked and  the seasoning checked and satisfactory, add as much shredded chicken as you want to.  

Stir in carefully and your soup is ready to eat.

Just allow the chicken to warm through as it is already cooked.  If you over stir once cooked chicken is added, it will disintegrate into threads....ugh!  If you followed my post on Roast Chicken, you will have plenty of bits of cooked chicken to add to this soup.

This is really my favourite soup.  I love it on a cold winter's evening with big chunks of good bread well buttered - I like my butter!

The next posts - I think I will start developing Tapas Recipes for you.......lovely food, well I am in Spain; or I might play around with someone else's dish which catches my eye!

Until the next time

Adios Amigos, from 'sunny' Spain. X