Two Chick-Pea Soups with Porcini Mushrooms

Appears in
Marcella's Italian Kitchen
Marcella's Italian Kitchen

By Marcella Hazan

Published 1986

  • About
What is it about legumes that comforts men? When work or other afflictions bring down my husband, Victor, chick-peas will lift him from his depths. If I should add wild mushrooms, he soars. There are friends for whom I occasionally make these soups, but I associate them with more private celebrations, with winter evenings when Victor and I dine alone.

Although you’ll find chick-peas and dried porcini mushrooms in both the soups that follow, they are distinctly different dishes. The first is a looser, slightly redder soup that features, in addition to the mushrooms, the fascinating combination of spinach and chick-peas. Both ingredients have an earthy quality, the spinach cooler, more mineral, the chick-peas denser and toastier.