Harira

Ingredients

• 400 g lamb shoulder, in small dice
• 150 g red lentils
• 1 tin of chickpeas, drained
• 2 onions, finely chopped
• 3 celery sticks, finely diced
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
• 1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• a pinch of saffron
• 60 g vermicelli, broken up
• 2 tbsp plain flour
• a big bunch of coriander
• a big bunch of parsley
• 1 lemon, in wedges

Method

1. Brown the lamb

   Brown the diced lamb in a heavy pan. Cut it small — harira is a soup you eat with a spoon, not a stew.

   10 min

2. Onion and celery

   Add the onions and celery and cook until completely soft. Celery is unusually prominent in harira and it should almost disappear into the broth.

   12 min

3. Spices and tomato

   Stir in the ginger, turmeric, cinnamon and crumbled saffron, then the tomatoes, and cook 10 minutes until it darkens.

   10 min

4. Lentils and chickpeas

   Add 1.5 litres water with the lentils and chickpeas and simmer 45 minutes until the lentils have collapsed.

   45 min

5. Vermicelli near the end

   Add the broken vermicelli and cook 8 minutes more. Any earlier and it turns to paste.

   8 min

6. Thicken with tadouira

   Whisk the flour into 200 ml cold water until smooth and stir it in slowly, then simmer five minutes. This flour slurry is the traditional thickener and it gives harira its distinctive velvety, slightly cloudy body. Finish with masses of chopped herbs and lemon.