chickenfeet

Yesterday I made harira. It was very good. Harira is a Moroccan soup traditionally eaten at sunset during Ramadan so it's designed to provide rapid nourishment for hungry, cranky people. It falls into the category of "meal soups" which is important to us as with our insane and ill matched schedules lemur_catta and I like to have such soups in the freezer to provide a quick and easy meal whatever time one of us comes in. There are probably at least as many recipes for harira as there are families in Morocco but this is the version I made.

It's pretty simple. Take 500g of lamb cut in cm cubes, two chopped onions, a small handful of chopped parsley and 250ml or so of chopped celery preferably including leaves. Also spices; itsp ground black pepper, 1tsp turmeric, 1 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/4 tsp ground ginger, pinch pulverised saffron. Cook this lot fairly gently in 30g of butter for about 5 minutes then add a 28oz can of diced tomatoes and cook for another 15 minutes. Now add 2L of water, 200g lentils and 125g dried chickpeas (soaked overnight) and salt lightly. Simmer for about two hours until lamb and chickpeas are tender. Meanwhile beat two eggs with the juice of half a lemon. When the soup is cooked check the seasoning, chuck in the egg mix and turn off the heat. Stir the soup so that the egg forms egg strands in the soup.

Serve in large bowls topped with a couple of thin slices of lemon and a dusting of ground cinnamon and accompany with crusty bread.