Aleppo used to be an important Armenian culinary capital before the punishing violence it endured in the Syrian civil war this century. Isgouhi grew up there and learned this recipe from her mom Nartouhi, who herself had barely escaped the Armenian genocide as a newborn at the Musa Dagh communities who resisted the death march in 1915. Isgouhi is a kibbeh making machine who provides the extended family with these amazing bulgur-meat football shaped delights that most frequently populate our yogurt soup in Sark family dinners. When there was more meat-bulgur dough for encasing the kibbeh than filling material, Nartouhi would make tiny solid balls with the extra dough for this chickpea kibbeh ball soup.
As I got ready to record this recipe I had never experienced before, the truth came out. It was just the chick pea pasta soup that makes a frequent appearance at our family dinners, replacing the pasta shells with the miniballs.