On the first week of fall season, temperature has dipped to 45F degrees in the late evening here in the Metro DC area and in the Midwest. For me, it is time to start churning my pet hot pot into action. It’s soup season!

It’s unfortunate to stadium attendees here. The Nationals are in the playoffs. The playoff fever is so hot, a scavenger hunt for 100 Nats gnomes is on this Thursday in the Metro DC area. Six of the gnomes come with a surprise, tickets for game 2, this Saturday. The fastball fanatics in DC are not used to watching the game into the fall season. So even if tickets prices are soaring, the websites are busy selling.

Making this Salmon-Garbanzo Soup is like opening a packet of store-bought chicken noodle soup (no, no using of store-bought sliced onion or bottled garlic. When I saw sliced onion in the grocery in early 2000, even my high school son was laughing and said, “How lazy can one be? That’s tasteless by time you cook it and has no more nutrients.” He’s the one who has my culinary genes). I used the canned red wild-caught salmon, which has more calcium due to the tenderness of the bones, which are edible.

Ingredients:
Note: oz/ounce – tsp/teaspoon – Tbsp/tablespoon – grd/ground

1-1/2 Tbsp cooking oil
1/2 of yellow onions, sliced
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 14.75 oz can wild red salmon
1-1/2 cups cooked garbanzo beans, washed & drained
1 32-oz chicken broth
1 tsp salt, to taste
1 tsp black grd pepper

2 Tbsp cooking oil
2-1/2 sliced yellow onions to caramelize, optional

Instructions:

1. In a soup pot, pour oil and sauté onions until opaque in color. Add the minced garlic, sauté for an additional 3 minutes.
2. Add the salmon to the pot, use the ladle to divide the salmon into serving pieces. Add the garbanzos, broth, salt and grd pepper, let it boil for 5 minutes. Then, remove from heat.
3. This is optional but it adds another dimension to the flavor of the soup. In a skillet, pour cooking oil and caramelize the remaining onions. Occasionally stir the onions to prevent it from burning for about 20 minutes or until it’s brownish in color.
4. Serves 4 hearty soups or if Salmon Fried Rice is made, will have some extra for small bowls of soup.

Fried Rice:

2 Tbsp cooking oil
6 cloves minced garlic
4 cups steamed rice, about 2 cups of uncooked Jasmine rice
2 cups drained salmon-garbanzo mixture
2 tsps salt

Instructions:

1. In a small 8” skillet, make sunny side up.
2. Pour oil in wok or big skillet and sauté garlic for about 3 minutes or until it becomes golden.
3. Placed steamed rice, mixed with garlic, then add the salmon mixture into the wok.
4. Add salt to taste and mix well. Let it blend for about 8 minutes, occasionally mixing it until moisture has dried up.
5. Serves 4.

All rights reserved © The Chew Inn-NoVA Copyright January 2013.