Creamy chickpea soup with clams

I was served this simple traditional dish in a little Sicilian village at the seaside and was absolutely taken by it. I always loved ‘vongole’, the Mediterranean clams, due to their delicate taste and their beautiful shells. In this dish their taste is captured wonderfully in the chickpea cream, which in Sicilian is called a ‘vellutata’ thanks to its velvety consistency. Below you will find a vegan variation, where artichokes substitute the clams and create a similar experience.

Ingredients

• 400g already cooked chickpeas
• 2 cloves garlic
• a small piece of chili pepper
• one sprig of rosemary
• 500g clams (vongole)
• a bunch of parsley
• half a glass of dry white wine
• 2-3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, e.g. from il circolo
• Salt
• Pepper

Method

1. Heat oil, garlic, chili pepper and rosemary in a pan. Add the chickpeas, salt and pepper and cover with water. Cook for 10 minutes, then remove the chili and garlic and continue cooking for another 5 minutes.
2. Wash the clams several times so that they lose any sand that may be inside them.
3. In a frying pan, heat olive oil, garlic, chili, parsley and a dash of wine. When cooking, add the clams and cover the pan with a lid.
4. When all the clams have opened, filter the cooking water through a strainer (this step is important to check that there is no sand left in the clams).
5. Remove the rosemary stalk and add the cooking liquid from the clams to the chickpeas, continue cooking for a few more minutes. Then puree the chickpeas with a hand blender until they are creamy.
6. Shell some of the clams.
7. Pour the chickpea cream onto serving plates and complete with the clams (shelled and in their shells), chopped parsley, some of the chickpeas kept aside and a drizzle of olive oil. Try it, it’s delicious!

Tips

• You can use the carefully cleaned hearts and stems of fresh artichokes to replace the clams. Before you start, fill a large bowl with cold water. Squeeze a couple lemons into it, and drop the lemon halves into the water. Make sure to trim the artichoke of every tough, inedible part and to keep just the tender hearts and the stems. Cut off the stems, and cut them into quarters. Cut the hearts into 8 pieces. Next, remove the choke itself. That’s the furry stuff in the center of the heart that would have eventually bloomed into a flower had the artichoke not been picked while still a bud. You can do this with a sharp knife. Store all pieces of artichokes in the lemon water until you add them to your pan with olive oil, garlic, chili, parsley and a dash of wine (step 3 of the recipe). You may need to add a bit more wine or water for extra liquid. Add some salt and cover the pan. The artichokes are ready to eat after approximately 15 minutes or when they become soft.