Chickpea and Beef Stew

This recipe is inspired by the Cannellini Bean and Lamb Soup in Jerusalem: A Cookbook. I’m the kind of home-cook who looks at a recipe, opens the pantry doors and thinks ‘Yeah, I can make this work.’ Sometimes to great success, other times it’s clear the recipe is less of a guide and more of a hard and fast set of rules. In this case, I probably should have followed the recipe to a T, but I didn’t and had to make some significant changes on the fly. The end result was pretty great, but I have a feeling the original recipe as written is excellent. Below is my recipe with flavors inspired by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi. 

Makes 4-6 servings

Ingredients:

• 6 tablespoons olive oil (plus more for drizzles)
• 1 onion, diced
• ¼ small celery root, diced
• 20 cloves of garlic
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 pound stew beef
• 7 cups water
• 1 ½ tablespoons beef stock concentrate
• ½ cup dry chickpeas, soaked overnight to make 1 ½ cups Chickpeas
• 10 green cardamom pods
• ½ teaspoon turmeric
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 4-6 potatoes
• 3 tsp brown rice vinegar
• 2 lemons, juiced
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Place 2 tablespoons olive oil in a heavy bottom dutch oven with the diced onion and celery root. Bring to a sauté over medium heat.
2. Add the pealed crushed garlic cloves, coriander and cumin. Cook for another 2 minutes to release the aromatics.
3. Season the stewing beef with salt and pepper, add to the dutch oven and reduce the heat to low. Stir to coat the beef in the aromatics.
4. Add the presoaked chickpeas, cardamom pods, turmeric, tomato paste and potatoes.
5. Add the water and beef stock concentrate. Bring to a low boil and let cook for an hour.
6. Strain out roughly 2/3 of the chickpeas and potatoes.Blend those with 1 cup of the soup broth, rice vinegar and remaining olive oil.
7. Add the blended ingredients back to the soup and mix in the lemon juice. Stir to fully combine and bring back to a low boil for 15 – 20 minutes.
8. To serve, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with parsley.