Moroccan Harira

From David Tanis, A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes, page 219 

Tanis says the texture should be "velvety," which means it must be gently simmered for "a minimum of 2 hours."  He also says this tastes even better the next day. 

Ingredients:

2 T olive oil

1 pound boneless lean shoulder of lamb, in ½-inch cubes

2 large onions, finely diced

½ t crumbled saffron

1 t each ginger, cinnamon, turmeric, and pepper

2 t powdered hot red chile

6 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 C dried peeled fava beans, picked over and washed

1 C red lentils, picked over and rinsed

13 C water

Salt

6 ripe tomatoes, coarsely chopped

1 C coarsely chopped parsley

1 C coarsely chopped cilantro plus slivered cilantro for garnish

⅓ C all-purpose flour

4 T butter

Lemon wedges 

Directions:

Heat oil in a deep heavy-bottomed soup pot.  Brown the lamb lightly, then add the chopped onion, stir, and brown them.  Add all the spices and the garlic and let them sizzle for a few minutes.  Add the favas, lentils, and 12 cups water and bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat to a bare simmer.  Add 2 t salt and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 1 ½ hours.

Put the tomatoes, parsley, and cilantro in a blender with a little salt and puree the mixture.  Add the puree to the soup and simmer for another ½ hour or so.

Now puree half the soup and return it to the pot.  Make a slurry with the flour and remaining 1 cup water (stir together until smooth), add to the soup, and simmer for 10 minutes.  Taste and adjust for salt and spice.  Add the butter and stir until melted.  The texture should be quite smooth, neither too thick nor too thin.

Ladle the soup into bowls and sprinkle with slivered cilantro.  Squeeze a few drops of lemon juice into each bowl, and pass a plate of lemon wedges.  Tanis suggests serving this soup with oranges and dates on the side.

Cassie's Version

This was terrific, and perfect as the weather cools down again.  I have to admit that I did not follow the time directives, hurrying this along because I was hungry and I just didn't see the point of the additional cooking time - it looked and tasted pretty velvety to me!  I probably cooked everything together (before adding the tomatoes) for a little over an hour, and then for another 15 minutes with the tomato puree and the flour.  The favas and the lentils had pretty much fallen apart after an hour.

Another reason that I didn't want to take the extra cooking time was because I had already spent about 20 minutes peeling the favas that I soaked all day.  I bought whole favas, and this recipe specifically calls for shelled beans.  There is apparently some debate over whether they need to be peeled or not - the French and Americans peel them, and it seems that everyone else might not.  But then I remembered that fava beans can be dangerous for some people to eat.  I've eaten them fresh with no problem, but for some reason I connected the danger to the peel, and opted to shell them so that tonight's dinner would not be anyone's last.

I also had to take a bit of extra time fishing out the lamb shoulder chops from the soup, to cut the meat off the bone.  Apparently there is a dearth of lamb in the Boston suburbs - I got what I could, and it was very good, but that too took a bit more work.  Perhaps because of these additional steps, I forgot to add the saffron, which was a shame (though I just threw in a few strands as we were eating).  I stuck to the recipe fairly closely in other respects, reducing the water slightly as I had already soaked the favas, and adding the juice of two whole Meyer lemons at the end along with more salt.

The end result was quite spicy, in a good way, as the Indian chile powder we had on hand is surprisingly potent.  The other spices were lovely in this dish; I particularly like adding cinnamon to savory dishes.  The lamb was such a nice change from other meat soups, and I enjoyed cooking with favas for the first time (despite the peeling!).

Highly recommended!

Ann's Version

There was no boneless lamb to be found at the grocery other than a 6 pound boneless leg.  Las Cruces stores are heavy on the pork and beef but the lamb selections are rather paltry.  Instead I used 2 pounds of bone-in shoulder chops that I deboned and cut in small pieces.  The bones weren't very substantial so I used quite a bit more meat in the soup than called for in the recipe.  The spices in this are wonderful and the only change I made was using 4 tsp. of powdered gualillo chile (a very flavorful type with medium heat) instead of the 2 tsp. of hot chile.  It made for perfect heat.  The only fava beans I could find were canned, so I used a 12 oz. can, drained and rinsed. 

When I got to the point where the soup needed to simmer for 1-1/2 hrs. I realized I had 3 oboe lessons to give starting in 15 min. so I put the soup on a really low simmer and ended up leaving it for 4 hours!  Actually not a bad technique it turned out since the soup would be pureed anyway.  The meat was extremely tender and the fava beans still held their shape but were nice and soft.  I pureed 8 small tomatoes with parsley and cilantro I had growing outside (yay for warmer weather!) and after adding that to the soup simmered it for only 10 or 15 min. more.  Instead of pureeing half the soup I half-pureed the whole pot with an immersion blender (one of the best appliances ever!), added the flour paste and simmered for another 10 min.  The added butter at the end is a nice touch, both taste and texture-wise.

A tablespoon or so of chopped cilantro and 2 lemon wedges squeezed in made this soup perfect.  I ate it with some very fresh sourdough bread and a tangelo (would have also eaten a few dates alongside but the last date had disappeared from the pantry that morning).  I don't think I've ever made a soup with lamb before or a soup that had pureed meat.  This may be my favorite soup so far and I found myself craving it while away from home.  Luckily it makes a large batch and I have 3 more quarts in the freezer!

Indonesian Spicy Chicken Soup (Soto Ayam)

Adapted from The Complete Asian Cookbook by Charmaine Solomon

3 lb. chicken parts
8 c. cold water
3 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. whole black peppercorns
few celery tops
2 onions
2 T. peanut oil
2 fresh red chiles, seeded & chopped
6 curry leaves
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp. grated fresh ginger
1 tsp. dried shrimp paste
1 tsp. ground turmeric
1 1/2 T. ground coriander
2 t. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. ground fennel
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
lemon juice to taste
2 small bundles egg noodles
Garnish:  3 hard boiled eggs, chopped
                 6 cloves garlic, sliced and fried
                 8 sliced green onions
                 fried dried chiles
                 crumbled potato chips
                 sambal olek

Wash chicken parts and put in pot with cold water, salt, peppercorns, celery tops and one onion.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer for 35-40 min. or until chicken is tender.  Strain stock into a bowl.  Remove bones and skin from chicken parts and cut into small pieces, then set aside.  Heat peanut oil in large pot, slice the other onion and fry it in the oil with the chiles and curry leaves until the onion is soft and starts to brown.  Add garlic, ginger, shrimp paste and fry, crushing shrimp paste with a spoon.  Add the ground spices and fry for a few seconds longer.  Add the strained stock, bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer for 10 min.  Add lemon juice to taste.  Cook the egg noodles in boiling water for 5 min., then drain and add to soup together with the chicken meat.  Serve in bowls and garnish with the hard boiled eggs, fried garlic, green onions, potato chips.  Add sambal carefully each bowl to get the heat you desire.

Ann's Version

This soup is absolutely delicious!  The Spicy African Chicken and Peanut Soup had been my favorite so far, but this one is just as good.  Perhaps "spicy chicken" in the name bodes well.  I used 3 lbs. of boneless, skinless chicken breast and it made for a very rich broth.  Since there were no bones or skin it seemed like a lot of meat so when the broth was done I fished one breast out and fed it to my husband.  (Okay, that sounds strange!)  For the chiles I used 3 red serranos from my last summer's harvest that were in the freezer.  Freezing chiles definitely seems to temper the heat but since the sambal olek goes in as a garnish I figured that would ramp it up.  I could not find the shrimp paste I thought was in the pantry so instead used a couple of tsps. of some really thick Vietnamese anchovy sauce, figuring what was important was the funky fishiness. I used the juice of two whole lemons for the "lemon juice to taste" and it was perfect.  For everything else I stuck to the recipe.

I used chopped hard-boiled egg, chopped green onion, sambal olek and fried garlic as garnishes and they really make it special.  The garlic was sliced very thin and fried at quite a low heat in peanut oil until it was light brown (I could eat a lot of this all by itself!).  I had just bought a jar of sambal olek so it was really nice and fresh and spicy.  For a good-sized bowl of soup I used about a tablespoon, but of course this was for someone who loves hot chile! Crushed potato chips were suggested as garnish in the original recipe but soggy smashed chips did not appeal to me. 

This is is actually quite a hearty soup because of the noodles and the amount of chicken, but because of all the lemon juice and the wonderful spices it tastes light and healthy.  I will definitely make this one again!

Cassie's Version 

Perfect soup for a snow day - which this ended up being.  I went to class this morning, then all of metro Boston closed down because of heavy snowfall to be followed by freezing rain.

As I said in a previous post, I'm always looking for ways to use the habaneros in my freezer, which are from my mom's garden.  They are simply too overpowering to use in most dishes, but because I knew this recipe would make quite a lot of soup I thought one habanero would actually work better than several milder chiles.  This was a good move - the soup is definitely spicy (I did not seed and de-vein the habanero), but not overly so. 

I found what turned out to be a very nice shrimp paste at the grocery store.  My previous experience with shrimp paste resulted in disaster.  When I was in high school, my mom bought a really beautiful Asian cookbook full of color photos.  We decided to make an attractive-looking eggplant dish from this book that called for shrimp paste in it, and it started out really promising - until we added the paste.  We ended up tossing the entire skillet of food into the trash.  Its odor was so vile and pungent that I believe we opened up all the windows for several hours even though it was quite cold out.  So I was hesitant to use it here but I think I've found a paste that is a lot less potent - a Thai paste in oil.  I'm actually looking forward to cooking more things with it.

I used one very large lemon to brighten up the soup and threw in cooked lo mein noodles at the end.  I also topped my soup with hard-boiled egg, green onion, sambal oelek, and fried garlic.  When I was looking for shrimp paste in the Asian section of the grocery store, I also came across jars of fried garlic and fried onion.  I thought a jar of fried garlic would actually prove useful for quite a few dishes - as a garnish for stir fries, for example.  The garlic is shelf-stable and somewhat similar in consistency to French's fried onions (though not nearly as salty).

My one problem with the dish was really my fault.  I simmered the chicken either too long, or at too high a temperature.  This resulted in a lovely broth, but the chicken itself was overcooked.  So if you make this, be sure to check the meat as it simmers so you don't get past the pleasantly tender stage.  Even with this problem, the soup is extremely good - and just what I needed on a cold, snowy winter day!