Zemin (Zuppa di Ceci)

Zemin is a chickpea, chard and dried mushroom soup from Liguria. It starts with a slow soffritto of onion, parsley, carrot and celery in olive oil, then the porcini and a big pile of chard go in. Once the chard has wilted, you add the chickpeas and stock and let everything simmer together. You serve it over a slice of toasted bread with a drizzle of raw olive oil.

You’ll also see the soup called ceci in zimino or zimino di ceci. In Genoese dialect it’s çeixai co-o zemin, which means chickpeas with zemin.

Zemin – Liguria’s Cucina Povera Soup

Zemin comes from Liguria’s cucina povera, the cooking of families who had to make a meal out of very little. Nothing in the pot is expensive. The vegetables are the everyday base of countless Italian dishes, and just a small amount of dried porcini is enough to give the soup a savoury flavour.

The chickpeas are what turn it into a meal. Without them, you’d have a light vegetable broth. With them, a bowl of zemin is filling enough to eat on its own, and the toasted bread in the bottom of the bowl makes it go further still.

Chard and Ligurian Greens

Liguria has always cooked with greens. The best-known example is preboggion, a mix of wild greens that goes into the filling for pansoti. Chard is one of the many greens Ligurians have always gathered and cooked, and in zemin it does most of the work.

The amount of chard in this recipe will look like far too much when it goes into the pan. Don’t cut back. It wilts to a fraction of its size in a few minutes, and once it has, you’ll be glad you didn’t hold back. Be sure to include the chard stalks: chop them small, cut the leaves into strips, and both soften in the pot.

What In Zimino Means

In Genoese cooking, zimino is a method rather than a single dish. You cook chard in a soffritto, then use it as the base for something else. Chickpeas are the best-known version, but Ligurians cook cuttlefish, squid, fish and even snails the same way. Calamari in Zimino uses the same base, with squid in place of the chickpeas.

The word itself comes from Arabic. Other regions have their own zimino dishes, but in Liguria it almost always means chard.

Zemin – a Soup for the Day of the Dead (2nd November)

In Genoa, zemin is the dish for 2 November, the Day of the Dead. Italians spend the day remembering family members who have died. It’s also a lean day, with no meat on the table, and a soup of chickpeas and greens suits it well.

Tinned or Dried Chickpeas

Dried chickpeas need an overnight soak and two to three hours of cooking before they go into the soup. It is always worth the effort to used dried chickpeas, but tinned work very well too. Rinse them well, but keep a little of the liquid, either from the cooking, or from the tin. You’ll use it to loosen the tomato purée before it goes into the pan for extra flavour.

Buon appetito! 🇮🇹

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Zemin (Ligurian Chickpea and Chard Soup)

An autumn soup of chickpeas, chard and porcini mushrooms from Italy's Liguria region.

Equipment

• Large heavy-based saucepan
• Small bowl
• Chopping board and sharp knife
• – sieve
• Kitchen paper

Ingredients

• 10 grams dried porcini mushrooms
• 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (plus extra to serve)
• 1 onion (finely chopped)
• 1 celery stick (finely chopped)
• 1 carrot (finely chopped)
• 1 small bunch flat-leaf parsley (finely chopped)
• 1 tbsp tomato purée
• 400 grams cooked chickpeas
• 500 grams chard leaves (cut into slices)
• 1.5 litres vegetable stock
• Salt
• Toasted bread (to serve (optional))

Instructions 

• Put the dried porcini in a small bowl with 150 ml of warm water. Leave them to soak for 20 minutes.
• Drain the chickpeas over a bowl and keep 50 ml of the liquid from the tins (or the cooking liquid if you soak and cook dried chickpeas)
• Lift the porcini out and squeeze them over the bowl. Chop them roughly. Strain 100 ml of the soaking water through kitchen paper and set aside.
• Heat the olive oil in the saucepan over a low to medium heat. Add the onion, parsley and a pinch of salt then fry for 5 to 6 minutes, until the onion softens.
• Add the carrot and celery and cook until soft.
• Stir in the porcini and cook for 2 minutes.
• Add the sliced chard to the pan along with the tomato paste in chickpea water. Cook for 6 to 8 minutes, stirring now and then, until wilted. Season lightly with salt.
• Add the chickpeas, the vegetable stock and the 100 ml of mushroom water. Bring to the boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 20 minutes.
• Taste and adjust the salt.
• Serve with some rustic crusty bread.

Notes

1. 500 grams of chard looks like far too much, but it’s the right amount once it has wilted.
2. Salt carefully at each stage. Stock brands vary a lot in saltiness, so taste before adding more.