Chorizo & Chickpea Soup

Ingredients

• Chorizo Sausage
• 2 Garlic cloves
• Ginger
• 2 tsp Paprika
• Cumin
• Parsley
• 1 whole Lemon juice
• 400 g Chickpeas
• Butter
• Sunflower oil
• 100 ml Water

Method

Slice the chorizo into discs roughly 5mm thick — this surface area matters because you're rendering the fat and building colour, not steaming the meat. Heat butter in a heavy-bottomed pan over medium-high heat until foaming, then add the chorizo. Let it sit for two minutes to develop a light caramelisation on the underside, then turn the pieces. After another minute, the fat pooling in the pan should smell distinctly spiced and the chorizo edges will have lost their raw sheen. This is your pork fat doing the work of a flavour base.

Add the minced garlic and ginger — both roughly the same volume, about a teaspoon each — directly into the hot fat. The aromatics will soften almost immediately; you want them fragrant and just beginning to turn golden, not brown. This takes thirty seconds. Pour in the sunflower oil now. Counterintuitively, you're adding fat because the water-soluble spices in the paprika and cumin need a lipophilic carrier; dry-frying these spices would scorch them and turn bitter. Stir the paprika and cumin into the fat — about a teaspoon of each — for another twenty seconds until the spices bloom and coat the solids.

Crack the lemon juice into the pan, then tip in the 400g of drained chickpeas. The legumes will absorb the flavoured fat and the acid from the lemon will brighten the earthiness of the cumin. Pour in 100ml of water — this isn't a thick soup, but a loosely-bound broth where each chickpea is distinct. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Five minutes is sufficient here; you're not cooking the chickpeas through (they're already tinned), you're marrying the flavours. The liquid should reduce slightly, concentrating the spice and fat.

Finish with a large handful of flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped, and season with salt. The parsley's anise note cuts through the heaviness of the chorizo fat and keeps the soup bright. Taste as you add salt — the chorizo itself carries sodium, so hold back initially. This soup is best eaten within thirty minutes of finishing; the parsley will discolour if left sitting, and the fat will congeal as it cools.