This is inspired by harira, an earthy, spicy, hearty Moroccan soup, often eaten to break the Ramadan fast. It is a main course in itself and perfect for a cold, damp winter’s day.
Harira is often made with lamb, but this is a veg-heavy version: as ever, adapt to your own tastes. I used home-made chicken stock as a base but a good vegetable broth works too, so it’s easily made vegetarian/vegan.
If you have time, leave it to sit and thicken up for anything up to 24 hours and re-heat when you want to eat. Try it with warmed flatbreads for dunking and scooping.
Harira with Root Vegetables
Ingredients:
2 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, peeled and roughly chopped
2-3 stalks of celery, diced
3 fat cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2 carrots, peeled and diced
1 sweet potato, peeled and diced
About 140g swede, peeled and diced
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp hot smoked paprika
1 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
Large pinch of saffron strands, crumbled and soaked in a little hot water
1 tbsp tomato puree
4 large ripe tomatoes, chopped, skinned if preferred
About 250g tinned or bottled chickpeas
125g green lentils (or 100g green and 25g red)
1 litre chicken or vegetable stock
Salt and pepper, to taste
The juice of 1/2 lemon plus extra lemon chunks to serve
Large handful each of chopped fresh coriander and parsley
Method:
Heat the oil in a deep pan and gently fry the onions and celery until soft and golden. Add the carrots, sweet potato, swede and garlic, stir to coat in oil and cook for five minutes more.
Now add the spices, except the saffron, stir and cook off for a few minutes. Pour in the saffron with its water, chopped tomatoes and tomato puree, the drained chickpeas and lentils, stirring again to coat in the spicy mixture. I like to use a handful of red lentils in addition to the green ones, to thicken the soup.
Add the stock and bring to a boil.
Put a lid on at a tilt and simmer gently, stirring occasionally, for about 45 minutes or until the lentils are tender and the flavours have blended.
Stir in the lemon juice and most of the herbs, reserving a few to garnish.
Check the seasoning and add salt and pepper and more lemon juice, to taste. Ladle into deep bowls and serve with extra lemon to squeeze over.
Anything with hot smoked paprika in is a winner with me. I have a mild aversion to swede but could perhaps replace it with yellow beetroot (which I believe you have a mild aversion to, if memory serves me right!)
Ick, yes! It’s a question of getting the sweet/earthy balance right, really, though a good squeeze of lemon juice at the end works wonders. Lx
Now this sounds the business. Much better than a fish finger sandwich. Just saying …. x
Certainly better for you. 🙂 Thanks, Margaret. xx
Best thing to come out of Morocco.
Tagines? Pastilla? I love Moroccan food.
It’s a good job tagines game out of Morocco. As the one’s I had there were awful. It’s just a pot anyway, it’s not like they reinvented anything.
You don’t consider tagines (the dish rather than the pot) to be Moroccan, Dave? I must say I really like them, and I have had good ones in Morocco, though I like to make my own. Lx
No, they are definitely Moroccan. The ones I had over there were so bad though. I can’t help but think they’ve been improved since they were exported. I’d not heard of the Harira soup and absolutely loved it. I guess its a matter of managing expectation.
Interesting, we obviously had very different experiences. The worst thing I ever ate in Morocco was the harira!
Bizarre.
Love veggie soup so this too can stand your spoon up! If I ever get to experience cold weather again soup like this will be eaten daily!
Ha, yes, not exactly soup weather where you are. This one is a rib-sticker. 🙂