Tahini Soup

Oh..... It came out nice!

Melissa Clark from the NYT published a take on Tahini Soup - and got me thinking. Hummus - hmmmm! Tahini - yum! She made it with carrots as the base, I figured I'd stay a little closer to the hummus originals and went with white beans. And it came out great!

Ok, the photo isn't as nice as hers. I was hungry, and somehow I didn't think of photos while I was cooking. But the taste - oh, so good! I used white beans and parsnip as base - white beans for the consistency, parsnip for it's sweetish round taste. Lemon juice and yogurt balanced the sweetness out, and of course tahini gave it great taste and creaminess.

Recipe:
Tahini Soup
1 cup of white beans, soaked for a day - I used big Lima beans, and took off the skins because they are big and chewy. With navy beans you can just go and cook them without worrying about anything.
1 shallot
3 or more garlic cloves
1 large or 2 small parsnips
1 small red chile and 1/2 dried chipotle chile - I like things spicy, and the chipotle gives it nice smokiness
olive oil
lemon zest
salt
lemon juice
1 cup yogurt
3 tablespoons tahini
optional: 1/2 preserved lemon, 1 garlic clove

Chop shallot, garlic, parsnips and chile and sautee in some olive oil for 5 minutes. Add soaked (and skinned) beans, chiles, lemon zest and water to cover everything by an inch, bring to a simmer and let cook until the beans fall apart. Add salt, lemon juice, yogurt, tahini, and puree the soup. Add water to reach the desired consistency, adjust salt, lemon juice and adjust salt and chile.

I added another garlic clove and some preserved lemon at that point to give it a bit more punch. It depends on your taste and what you have in your fridge...