This lovely recipe by the divine Ms Dupleix appeared in our local newspaper recently.
And although I couldn’t eat it for breakfast, it made a wonderful lunch for Maude and I last week. I used cavolo nero (kale) from Maude’s garden, as well as basil, leeks, kale and nasturtium leaves from our backyard. The cooked chick peas and pork stock came out of the freezer, and the spelt and walnut sourdough added a delicious nuttiness to the dish. Topped with salty capers and homemade harissa, it was delicious and very, very filling!
The soup could easily be made totally vegetarian by substituting the meat stock with a vegetable one. It’s a versatile dish, easily adaptable to whatever greens we can forage from our gardens, and quick to assemble, particularly if tinned chick peas or packaged stock are used. The recipe is here, and it’s definitely worth trying!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
I wish I could go for savory in the mornings.. But for lunch, this would be the perfect soup. You always combine the most tantalizing flavors.. Homemade Harissa and capers.. Wow!
Smidge, you need just a drop or two of Asian blood – we were all raised on savoury breakfasts! Mind you, it was a little too much, even for me.. ;-)
That looks yummy – I love the addition of the egg, I always feel they go well in things like this.
Nick, the egg makes it “breakfast”, right? ;-)
Oh yes, I think so… :D
Wow, that looks great. Filling enough for dinner, even.
Glenda, I think it would make a great dinner! I’m going to make it the next time our vegetarian friend Craig comes over!
A new chickpea and kale combination for me to try. I sometimes have a savoury breakfast – today was egg fried rice with spring onions and cashew nuts, and I like these soup/stew style dishes – good with some flatbreads. YUM!
Claire, I grew up eating rice porridge and pickles for breakfast, so a savoury breakfast is my preference. Grosses my cereal eating family out no end.. ;-)
This sounds perfect for dinners as well!
Tandy, I think so! It’s certainly very filling!
I could eat this for breakfast, lunch or dinner. 3 different varieties of kale growing in my garden at present and hopefully reaching harvestable stage soon.
Three types of kale! That’s exciting Norma, we only grow the cavolo nero!
Looks like a great lunch- or dinner. Funny- I probably wouldn’t eat it for breakfast, but I love leftover cold pizza for breakfast! I guess it is just a matter of taste and culture.
Heidi, it is so related to culture, isn’t it? I remember when Barbara gave me the recipe for moghrabieh, she told me it was a breakfast dish, but a late one, so you couldn’t eat it too early in the morning.. ;-)
https://figjamandlimecordial.com/2011/02/02/moghrabieh-2/
I don’t think I would eat this for breakfast either, but it looks delicious. Anything with cavolo nero and chick peas has got me hooked.
Deb, me too! I love them both! The original dish was made with spinach, but since we’ve started growing the kale in the backyard, we haven’t bothered with spinach!
Isn’t it funny, I couldn’t eat it for breakfast either, Celia, but it looks and sounds so nourishing. So perfect for this cold snap!
Lizzy, it was very warming, especially in this cold weather!
I love it!
Thanks Greg! :) Jill Dupleix has some wonderful recipes – she and her husband Terry Durack are both well known food writers, and both of them have recipes that are reliable and tasty…
I came here from Charlie’s blog post today about you and her luncheon. You are the creator of the In My Kitchen series! I have been enjoying following several bloggers doing this series and it’s a brilliant idea. Breakfast soup sounds wonderful!
Nami, thanks for stopping by! The IMK posts are great fun, I’m glad everyone is enjoying them so much! And meeting Charlie has absolutely made me week! :)
Nice. I have a bit of a sweet tooth at breakfast, so I’d maybe have this for a lunch. Love the egg!
Sara, my husband and sons are the same, whereas I find it hard to have something sweet for breakfast! It never seems to fill me up! :)
I love a savoury breakfast, and this looks amazing! What a great list of ingredients and bite of chili, yummo!
Becca, I think it would be an easy recipe to play with, by mixing up the spices a bit!
What a yummy soup. Im not sure I could do it for breakfast but yeah perfect for lunch
Nic, it was a great lunch, and there were leftovers for lunch the next day as well! :)
I have Jill’s ‘Old Food’ cookbook and it’s got some great recipes for breakfast like nasi goreng and things I would usually have for lunch rather than breakfast. This does look very tasty and perhaps suitable for any time of the day xx
Charlie, I have that book too! Doesn’t she have some great recipes? The baked bean recipe in that book is an absolute winner…
I love savory in the morning. A filling, low GI soup sounds like perfect breakfast food to me. (but then, Middle Eastern food has to be my favourite cuisine – if I have to pick:)
Linda, I adore the Middle Eastern/North African flavours as well! And any recipe that lets us slide a slice of stale sourdough into it has got to be a good thing! :)
This looks incredibly hearty and nourishing…yum!
Thanks Jane! It was incredibly filling! :)
Looks really good; would have to be a very late breakfast for me.
Can I ask about Pete’s chocolate chip cookies? following your instructions to the letter they still went fairly flat. (Do I need the magic Celia touch).
Elaine, it’s a fiddly recipe – I’m sorry you’ve had trouble with it. The problem is because there’s sooo much chocolate to cookie dough. They always end up a little fragile and waferish, and often quite thin. Make sure the egg you’re using isn’t too big – I had trouble with spreading when I was using jumbo eggs. And try letting the dough get really cold first, before you bake it. If the butter is creamed too much, the cookies will also spread, and that’s often the trickiest bit to get right. Not sure if any of that helps?
Great help Celia thanks so much ; I just knew the chocolate queen would have an answer for me.
The eggs I have been using are larger than normal………the girls must have eaten all their greens.
I finally successfully made Pete’s chocolate cookies with your excellent instructions!
Elaine, that’s fantastic, thanks for letting me know! Yaay! :)
I tried Kale chips recently and they were lovely but expensive. I think confining certain things to breakfast is just habit. I will eat any tasty left over for breakfast. Short on time in the mornings surely it would have to be made the night before?
I’m a bit of a leftovers for breakfast girl, too. As a young friend told me just last week, “breakfast is just a construct”. :) I think this would actually be quite quick to cook if everything was prepped the night before?
I love lunch stuff for breakfast, and I’ll eat chickpeas with anything, so this is a must have. Thanks, C!
Maz
Maz, I adore chick peas as well, have done ever since I was three, according to my mother! :)
This soup sounds delicious. I could eat it for breakfast. Sounds like you and Charlie had a lovely lunch. I’ve put the deli cafe on my to do lst for my next Sydney visit.
Barbara, we had such a lovely time! Charlie is every bit as fun and gorgeous as her writing suggests! :)
Certainly not breakfast for me either but very definitely lunch or dinner, thank you for the link Celia. I too love the divine Miss D.
Rose, I love her so much that after I made this recipe, I ordered three of her cookbooks. Of course, Book Depository was having a 10% off sale at the time.. ;-)
Yum perfectly delicious and something I would crave
http://www.mykitchenstories.com.au
Tania, thank you! It was a great lunch! I especially loved that we raided both our garden and Maude’s to make it! :)
Breakfast – no. Lunch – YES PLEASE :) Just my kind of dish.
Hehehe…it IS heavy for breakfast, I guess. Maybe it’s the sort of breaky you have when you’re about to head out to work the fields all day? :)
Dear Celia,
This soup looks so hearty and rustic, something I would definitely make if I make another trip down to the Southern Highlands this winter and stay in a cottage with a log fire. Love those chick peas in my soup too.
Chopinand, I love anything with chick peas! The Southern Highlands would be cold at this time of year! :)
I meant to ask you and then I thought, did I ask this one before, and then I thought oh never mind I’ll ask you, maybe beg you, for a recipe for a congee style soup. I would love to try and make one, we have preserved egg and pork congee when we go out for dim sum and I am sure we talked about it once upon a time. In the meantime I will just leer and drool gently at this gorgeous little number here – Ooh I do love soup :)
Darling, there really isn’t a recipe, my mother always put a little bit of washed rice and lots of water into a saucepan and cooked it until the rice was mushy and falling apart. It takes ages, and can also be done in a rice cooker. She would then add flavourings later – sometimes meatballs, or chopped white fish, and then season it with salt or a little soy.
When we were young, we would often have a bowl of rice congee for breakfast, sometimes flavoured with Bovril (remember that? We can’t get it here anymore).. :)
Looking at the healthy ingredients, I will settle for brunch.
Hehehe…we did too. And it was almost too heavy for that meal! :)
What a pretty soup! can I have some for my lunch please? *holds out empty bowl*
Yes, I’m dishing it out soon! When will you be here? :)
What a delicious looking soup! I agree, probably more of a lunch item for myself as well. I prefer my breakfasts on the lighter side.
Amber, it was too much even for me, and I grew up on savoury breakfasts! :)