Chicken and Chickpea Soup

Bring the chicken broth and 3 cups of water to a simmer (if using canned chickpeas, no need to use water). Add the chickpeas, shallot, garlic, chiles, and a good pour of olive oil. Season with salt and simmer on low until the chickpeas are extremely tender and cooked through, to the point of creaminess. Depending on how old your dried chickpeas are, this can take upwards of two hours, but shouldn’t be more than that. If using canned, let them simmer about an hour, just to really soften even further and acclimate into the broth. (Soaking the dried chickpeas will cut down on this time by about 30 minutes, but at that point, who cares, what’re 30 minutes? Where are you going? Nowhere. If you have an instant pot or pressure cooker, sure, use it– but I enjoy this long-simmering process the old fashioned way). As the chickpeas cook and simmer, they might want a little more liquid—go ahead and add it. Not all simmers and pots are created equal, so your liquid may be evaporating at a different rate, etc.

Once the chickpeas are where you want them (soft, tender, creamy, supple, salty, delicious, amazing, seasoned, gorgeous, flavorful) remove the soup from the heat and add celery and chicken. Season with salt and pepper, maybe more chili flake if you want something spicy. No need to keep simmering at this point, the chicken and celery will just warm through (you don’t want to soften the celery or overcook the chicken).

Ladle into a bowl and scatter with celery leaves (parsley is a good substitute here), scallion, and a squeeze of lemon. Parmesan if you want, a grind of black pepper, and drizzle of olive oil to finish.