Chickpea and Butter Bean Noodle Soup | Ash-e Reshteh

This dish is a fabulous, heart warming and thick soup from the Middle East – it seems like it is an Iranian echo of Minestrone or perhaps of the noodle soup your mother served you as a child when you were poorly. In Iran it is called ash-e reshteh, and it is the sort of soup that makes you feel happy, wholesome and nourished, all at the same time.

You might find resteh noodles at a Middle Eastern grocery, but if not, use linguine or Asian flat noodles. Japanese noodles will work too. In fact the noodles can even be left out and the soup will still be deliciously amazing.

Make sure that you purchase the type of reshteh noodles that are specifically for soup – there is another variety that has been toasted for use in rice dishes. My local Afghan grocery has the soup noodles called Pottage Macaroni even though they are long noodles rather than the short tubes we usually think of as macaroni. The instructions for cooking are cute. It directs you to:

Add the content of package to the stuff of cooking and boiling pottage. After nearly 10 mins of your favourite time, eat the prepared pottage.

Another alternative is to make your own noodles. They are made from a wheat flour dough without eggs, and cut flat and not very wide.

This is an Ottolenghi recipe from Plenty More. It combines chickpeas, lima (butter) beans and yellow split peas with noodles, herbs and spices for a filling, interesting soup that even has an aroma of the Middle East. In fact this soup can be made with a variety of lentils and legumes – red kidney beans are very common.

Today it is Ottolenghi day on the blog – one of two days per month where we publish all the latest posts of recipes we have tried in our project of cooking from Ottolenghi books – currently we are cooking from Plenty More, but not ignoring his other books completely. Note that I often slightly massage the recipes to suit what is available from our garden and pantry.

Similar recipes include Spicy Chickpea and Burghul Soup, Roasted Cauliflower Soup with Zaatar, Dried Fava Bean Soup, and Parsnip and Barley Soup.

Browse all of our Soups, Noodle Dishes, Chickpea Dishes and Butter Bean Dishes. Our Ottolenghi dishes from Plenty More are here. We have written about our experiences cooking through this book. Or explore our Early Autumn dishes.

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White Beans with Tahina | White Bean Tahini Salad

This lovely salad is a play on hummus – white beans are mixed with tahini, garlic, and lemon juice for a gorgeous salad. Chickpeas could be used also, for a salad even more closely aligned to hummus.

Once the beans are cooked, it is quite easy to make. While the beans are cooking the pinenuts and spices are toasted and some chilli oil mixed. Once the cooked beans are mixed with the other ingredients, they are allowed to sit for an hour for the flavours to meld and be absorbed by the warm beans.

Verjuice, originally from the Middle East, has been popularised in the West by Australia’s Maggie Beer. Thank you Maggie! Our Verjuice is a little sweeter and more complex than the tradition variety. If you would like to try the Middle Eastern verjuice, seek out ab-ghooreh or hosrum in your Middle Eastern grocery.

Are you looking for similar recipes? Try Roasted Red Pepper and White Bean Salad with Mozzarella, Quinoa, Parsley and Lemon Salad with White Beans, Easy White Bean Salad, Roasted Red Pepper and White Bean Salad, and Grilled Eggplant Salad with White Beans.

Browse all of our White Bean recipes and all of our many amazing Salads. Or explore our Mid Winter recipes for more inspiration.

Eggplant and Zucchini Baked with Chickpeas and Harissa Sauce

Oh the flavours of Morocco! And this lovely dish brings a memory of them to the table with the use of Harissa.

Harissa is a wonderful, fiery chilli and capsicum paste from Morocco and other parts of North Africa. Traditionally it is used as a condiment, and added to dishes according to taste. Used in small amounts, it enlivens stir-fries, stocks, sauces and vegetable casseroles, braises etc.

Harissa can be found in good supermarkets or Middle Eastern and North African providores. But it is also easy enough to make your own, with the advantage that you can adjust the heat level to your taste.

The dish itself is easy to make and tastes great with buttery couscous or even quinoa. We made it on a Summery day that was cooler – blessed relief from the intense heat, and a day where we were not afraid to turn the oven on. It takes 40 mins to cook, but can take longer depending on your cookware – we used terracotta and that always takes a bit longer.

Similar dishes include this Zucchini a la Grecque – a cold dish, perfect for heat waves, Steamed Eggplant and Zucchini with Chilli Paste, and a Baked Eggplant and Tomato Pasta Sauce.

For Eggplant dishes with Middle Eastern flavours try Saffron and Rosewater Scented Aubergine, Eggplants, Sultanas and Pinenuts with Yoghurt Dressing, and Fragrant Eggplant with a Garlic Yoghurt Sauce.

All of our Eggplant dishes are here, and our Zucchini recipes here. Browse our Moroccan recipes. Or spend some time exploring our easy Mid Summer recipes.

Chickpeas and Spinach (or other Greens) with Chilli

I LOVE this dish. Simple, but flavoursome and healthy. Mop up juices with some home made focaccia. Although Beetroot Leaves have been used here, it can also be made with Spinach, Chard or other Greens.

The chickpeas are soaked with bicarb soda to make them achingly tender when cooked. The greens are cooked with a tomato base with some wine (see the notes below the recipe for an alternative) and mixed with the chickpeas.

Are you looking for more Chickpea recipes? Try Green Salad with Chickpeas and Preserved Lemon, Smashed Chickpeas with Broccoli and Dukkah, and Hummus.

Or perhaps some Spinach dishes? Try Glass Noodles with Spinach, Mushroom, Spinach and Blue Cheese Salad, Mung Dal with Cumin and Spinach, and Potatoes and Spinach.

You might like to browse all of our Chickpea recipes and Spinach recipes. Check out our easy Late Winter recipes here.

Green Salad with Chickpeas, Preserved Lemon and Feta

A beautiful tangy salad with preserved lemons, which pair well with meltingly soft chickpeas. Used either canned or home-cooked chickpeas.

Salads make up an enormous part of our diet fro Spring to Autumn, adding a huge amount of variety and health benefits. It also adds amazing tastes and textures to the food that we eat daily. We recommend it highly. A salad a day keeps illness at bay 🙂 . Focusing on making a salad per day will change your life.

Want to try some simaril salads? Try Green Tomato Salsa with Green Coriander and Chilli, and Rocket and Penne Salad.

Are you looking for other Chickpea recipes? Try Chickpeas with Beetroot Greens and Chilli, Chickpea and Carrot Salad with a Curry Dressing, Chickpea, Almond and Sesame Spread, and Channa Chaat.

You can also explore all of our Salads here, or just the Bittman Salads here. Browse our Chickpea dishes. Or simply spend some time checking out our Early Autumn dishes.

Chickpea and Carrot Salad with a Curry Dressing

If you soak and cook some chickpeas and keep them in the freezer, you always have chickpeas for recipes that take your fancy. Or when you cook some, cook twice as many and then use them over the following week in salads, pasta sauces, bakes and other dishes.

Chickpeas are great in salads, and this is a simple, easy salad with celery and carrot – two ingredients usually in your fridge. The dressing has a bit of spice with the use of curry powder. I usually keep some Malay Curry Powder in the cupboards, for use in Malaysian dishes. If you don’t have a generic curry powder, use garam masala.

Have a look at some other Chickpea recipes: Glorious Five Bean Salad, Chickpea Tabbouleh, or Chickpea Sundal. You can also make Baked Chickpeas as a snack.

Are you looking for some Carrot Salads? Have a look at Mung Bean and Baked Carrot Salad, Carrot and Blueberry Salad, and Carrot Sambol. Also try Celery Salad with Sour Grapes and Burrata.

If you are after all Carrot recipes, look here, here for all Celery recipes, and here for all Chickpea recipes.

All of our various Salads are available here, or simply explore our Mid Summer dishes.

Falafel | Ta’amia | Spicy Middle Eastern Chickpea Patties or Balls

Who can resist a good falafel? Wonderful for snacks, meals, in wraps or topping salads, they are wonderfully tasty, textural and healthy. Whip them up using chickpeas you have previously cooked and  frozen, for an easy supper.

Home made falafel are a huge cut above store-bought ones, or even those from some restaurants that must purchase them in bulk and keep them frozen for a long time. One has to wonder why, they are so easy to make, whereas many pre-prepared ones taste like cardboard. Who hasn’t had a wrap or roll stuffed with cardboard-tasting falafel as the “vegetarian option”?

Worry no more, we have your back. These are fantastic. Crispy crunchy on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside. You can grind the chickpeas coarsely or more finely, which ever is your preference. But they must be ground enough to hold together as they fry.

You might like to also try hummus, which goes well with falafel. Chickpeas make a whole range of dishes. Try Chickpea Fingers, for example (it uses chickpea flour). Or Chickpea “Tabblouleh”.  Chickpeas can be baked, or made into a spread, or smashed and made into a salad.  They are really healthy – have a look at this article.

Similar recipes include Broad Bean and Mint Falafel and Fava Bean Falafel.

Browse all of our Middle Eastern recipes and our Chickpea recipes. Or explore our easy Mid Spring recipes.

This recipe  is one from our  first blog which ran from 1995 – 2005. Feel free to browse other recipes in our Retro Recipes series .

This recipe has its genesis in Middle Eastern Vegetarian Dishes by Arto Der Haroutunian who has written many classic Middle Eastern and Northern African cook books – my copy is a an ancient one, but it has been re-released in recent years.

Chickpea Fingers with Tomato Salsa

A really nice snack to have when you are hot or tired or jet lagged, made with chickpea flour. It takes about 30 mins including cooling time.

Chickpea flour, also called besan or gram flour, is an essential ingredient in the kitchen, especially for Indian cooking. It makes a great batter, thickener, thin fritter or pan cake style pudla/cheela, and other goodies. Why not also try Pudla with Green Coriander and Mung Sprouts, Crispy Battered Onion Rings, and Gram Flour Vada. Going Italian, try the wonderful Farinata with Tomatoes and Onion. If it is desserts that you are after, try this Besan Custard.

Feel free to browse all of our Chickpea Flour recipes here and here. Our Salsa recipes are here. Or you might like to browse Snack recipes here and here. Check out our easy Mid Summer Recipes.

Glorious Five Bean Salad

In this up-and-down weather at the moment, one day 38C, the next down to 20C, Summer trying to heat up but seemingly running out of fuel. We need to vary our food according to weather – when H O T , we do very very cooling dishes, when it cools we look for a little more substance.

Just right for the cooler Summer days is a Five Bean Salad – the beans add substance but it is still a salad, full of the tang of lemon and olive oil, Summery full of parsley.

Are you after similar dishes? Try Pan Fried Broad Beans with Tomatoes and Thyme, Green Beans with Freekeh, Walnuts and Tahini, and Tawa Broad Beans.

Some more Salads for you – we have so many! Try a Simple but Delicious Chickpea Salad, Easy White Bean Salad, Sprouted White Pea Sundal and Fava Bean Puree with Dill.

You might like to explore our recipes for Chickpeas, Cannellini Beans, Kidney Beans, Green Beans and Broad Beans. All of our Salads are here and here. Or browse our easy Early Summer dishes.

Chickpea “Tabbouleh”

There are some things that just go together. Like Figs and Almonds. Like Chickpeas, olive oil, lemon and parsley. Tomato and Basil. Take a combination that works, and it will give you endless dishes.

Here, we pulse the chickpeas and make a tabbouleh style salad with them.

Read all about chickpeas here.

Are you looking for other Chickpea recipes? Try Chickpeas with Beetroot Greens and Chilli, Simple Delicious Chickpea Salad, Baked Chickpeas, and Tomato Paella.

You might like to browse our Chickpea Salads, or all of our Chickpea dishes. Explore our Middle Eastern Dishes. And check out all of Bittman’s Salads. Or explore all of our Mid Autumn dishes.

Simple Delicious Chickpea Salad

There is something very special about chickpeas hot from the pan, drizzled with olive oil, and only then sprinkled with salt and some lemon (not lime) juice squeezed over. The hot chickpeas release their aroma to the olive oil and the olive oil its aroma to the chickpeas. It is quite special.

My favourite way of cooking chickpeas is on the slow cooker setting of my rice cooker. Set it for 9 hours or so, and then let it sit on the Warm setting for several hours. There is no need to be precise with a slow cooker – but be sure it is a “slow” cooker, not just a “bit slower than normal” cooker. I have one of those too, in my cupboard, used occasionally.

Are you looking for similar recipes? You might also like to try Smashed Chickpeas with Broccoli and Dukkah, Chickpea Sundal (Indian Salad), and Green Salad with Chickpeas and Feta.

Browse all of the Chickpea Salad recipes and all of the dishes featuring Chickpeas, explore the Bittman Salads and check out all of the many many Salad recipes. Be inspired by our Early Autumn recipes.

Channa Sundal | Chickpea Sundal | Kondai Kadalai Sundal

Another popular and delicious Sundal eaten as a snack at this time of the year is a Chickpea Sundal, also called Channa Sundal. Sundals are sometimes called salads, but more accurately they are a stirfried lentil with coconut and a tadka (spice mix fried in ghee) of black mustard seeds, urad dal, asafoetida, dried red chillies and curry leaves. It is as simple as that.

If you want an instant sundal, keep soaked and cooked chickpeas in the freezer. Defrost them in the microwave or in the fridge or on the kitchen bench before making the Sundal. It will take you 5 mins only to make the dish.

You might also like to try Sweet Corn Sundal, Adzuki Bean Sundal, Sprouted Green Gram Sundal, and White Pea Sundal. Or you can make a sundal with du Puy Lentils or some mung dal, equally as delicious. Explore all of the Sundal Recipes, they are all quick and gorgeous.

SPRING into Salads | Seasonal Cooking

It is so exciting to have Spring appear, creeping around the corner as she does, not really making her presence felt, just a little warmer, a little sunnier day by day. Capricious too, bringing thunderstorms and hail one moment and radiant sunshine the next.

Today, in all her glory, Spring served up a magnificent day. The afternoon was spent with friends eating and communing, enjoying her magnificence under sprouting grapevines, tiny tomato plants in just a tad too early, herbs flourishing.

Smashed Chickpeas with Broccoli and Dukkah

The cookbook that is featuring at the moment is Community, Salad Recipes from Arthur’s Kitchen. Great food is on every page. The salads do take a bit of pre-planning and time to prepare, but are worth it, and I always make enough to last for lunches and quick dinners.

This salad can be made a lot more simply than appears on the pages of the book IF, like me, you always have some bibs and bobs around that you have precooked, perhaps in the freezer, definitely in the fridge.

Are you looking for broccoli recipes? Try cooking it on the BBQ. There are other Broccoli recipes here and here. And other Chickpea recipes here and here.  Explore our Salads here and here. You will love our Autumn recipes here and here.

Dal Makhani | Restaurant Style | Recipe from the Oberoi Hotel

One thing always guaranteed to melt the heart of everyone at your table is Dal Makhani. Boy is it good! This is one of several versions of Dal Makhani in our recipe collection. Another favourite is Nilgiri Dal Makhani – I hope that you try it too.

Makhani is the Punjabi word for “buttery”, and this sure lives up to its name of Buttery Lentils! I had this in India at the Oberoi hotel in Bangalore and it was so very very good. Along with their dosa, it was one of my first great discoveries when I began travelling to India.

Asking the Chef for the recipe, he kindly typed it out for me. It caused much hilarity in the kitchens – I am not sure whether that was because I asked for the recipe or their difficulty in translating it into English and/or into servings for 6 people when they are used to cooking for 600.

Are you looking for Dal Makhani recipes? Why not try some others too. We recommend Nilgiri Dal Makhani, Indian Bazaar Dal Makhani and Ma di Dal (Kali Dal). You might be interested in reading Why Mah di Dal is not Dal Makhani.

Or perhaps you are looking for Punjabi recipes. Try Quince Pickle, Potato and Eggplant Curry, and Baingan Bharta.

You might also browse all of our collection of Dal Makhani and similar recipes.  Our Punjabi recipes are here and our Indian recipes are here. Or find some inspiration in our Mid Winter recipes.