Best Thanksgiving recipes: creamy chickpea soup with shrimps and crispy bacon

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Do you know what are one of the easiest, yet sumptuous dish you can make at home? A creamy chickpea soup with shrimps and crispy bacon.

Shrimp and bacon are of the greatest and most duo of the Italian cuisine: the sweetness of the shrimps is wrapped by the greasy saltiness of bacon, that must be crispy, even to offer a contrast of textures.

But for a perfect dish you need a “base” that can accompany this sweet and salty contrast of flavors and there’s nothing better than a velvety chickpeas cream as partner. Not too intense as a flavor but round, delicate, excellent to enhance the shrimp-bacon symphony.

The creamy chickpea soup with shrimps and crispy bacon recipe is simple, as only cooking tip, we recommend using dried, not canned, chickpeas. Just soak them in water the night before, otherwise the soup will be a pale imitation of the original recipe and would be a shame to spoil this great recipe for laziness.

Ingredients for making creamy chickpea soup with shrimps and crispy bacon

6 servings

• 500 grams of dried chickpeas
• 50 grams of celery
• 1 carrot
• 1 onion
• 1 bay leaf
• a sprig of time
• 2 liters of vegetable broth
• 18 shrimp
• 1/2 lemon
• 6 slices of bacon/pancetta, Piacenza pancetta is the top, but see what you can find
• extra virgin olive oil
• rosemary
• 1 teaspoon of turmeric
• 3 cl of cognac
• salt and pepper

How to make the perfect creamy chickpea soup with shrimps and crispy bacon

Let’s start with chickpeas, as we said put them in a large bowl and cover with water for all the night. And if you can, remember to add more water if they had absorbed it all.

Ok, let’s start. Drain and rinse chickpeas to clean up any dirt.

Chop the onion, carrot and celery and let them simmer with 8 spoons of olive oil in a large pot, for 10 minutes on low heat.

Add chickpeas, bay leaf and rosemary, cover with 2 liters of broth and simmer, covered, for 90 minutes. Check occasionally to stir.

While chickpeas are cooking, we will take care of shrimps and bacon.

Baconality by Robert Dennis To the bacon in a frying pan and cook over until it becomes crispy. It will take 10 minutes.

You can also put bacon on a grate of the oven with a baking tray under it cook at 130 degrees for 20 minutes. We is done, chop it merciless with a sharp knife to get delicious, crunchy bacon petals.

Wash shrimps and remove the shells, then rinse them and let them marinate in olive oil and lemon juice for 10 minutes.

When chickpeas are cooked, remove bay leaf and rosemary, blend to make a velvety cream and cook for 5 more minutes. Season with salt, pepper and a pinch of turmeric. Keep warm.

Drain shrimps and let them brown in a skillet with olive oil and a pinch of salt and pepper. After two minutes pour cognac and flip them to cook the other side. Two minutes per side, no more.

Hold on, we are almost done! Now let’s prepare the final dish: put some soup in a bowl, then a couple of shrimps and sprinkle some bacon crumbs.

If you don’t like shrimp or are allergic, this soup is great also with only bacon.

And now, don’t tell me you don’t like chickpeas!