LEEK, CHICKPEA & PANCETTA BROTH
a solid bit of cosy cookery.
Hello,
Welcome back to How I Cook+. This week I’m writing to you from the Greek island of Zakynthos. I’ve been here cooking at the Peligoni club, celebrating recipes from the book and kicking back a little after a busy summer and just before an even busier Autumn/Winter…
It’s hot here, but it ain’t back home, so today’s recipe is a simple soup that should warm a few bones. This may well be at once the quickest and the easiest recipe I’ve ever published on here, but that’s not to say it doesn’t punch well above its weight. I like to think of this soup as something of a “modular” recipe. It’s very easy to remove and plug in different ingredient as long as they suitably dovetail with the process. I’ll break down the component parts below, how they work together and how you can shoot from the hip and plug in your own favorites from the fridge.
Post recipe we’re listening to the new shame record and a I’ve found a very lovely new olive oil brand to shout about.
I’m chewing on some good books whilst I’m here in between services, so you can look forward to some more literature features in the coming weeks…
Cheers,
B x
LEEK, PANCETTA & CHICKPEA BROTH
It sounds odd, and feels even stranger typing it, but when you serve a hot bowl of this soup with crusty bread and butter, it tastes like a fennel sausage and leek pizza and it’s absolutely killer. Pork and fennel are common bedfellows and work extremely hard in this soup and whilst t might seem counterintuitive to crisp up the pancetta before dumping in loads of liquid and killing that crisp, it yields a very distinct flavour and texture. It’s not a million miles away from pancetta you might find on, well, a pizza. One that has been caramelised until crisp but then wilts and steams as it travels to your table or in the sweaty deliveroo backpack it’s stuffed into. Crucially, when you crisp up the pancetta it develops a toasty, caramelised flavour that will carry through the whole soup.