Morocco celebrates its independence from French and Spanish rule on November 18, so I made a traditional Moroccan soup called harira. Harira is a soup that is usually eaten to break the fast during the Islamic month of Ramadan, but it's also eaten throughout the rest of the year. I've actually had a recipe for this that I cut out of the New York Times a couple years ago hanging around in a greasy folder full of newspaper clippings and magazine pages.
Harira starts with a base of tomato and onion, sauteed just until soft.
The tomato and onion are then blended together into a puree. The recipe I used said the onion could also be grated, but this method of blending seemed a lot easier (on myself and my eyes).
Meanwhile, I cut up way too much celery. It ended up overpowering some of the other flavors, so next time I'll know not to do so much.
The puree goes back into the pot and simmers with chickpeas, the celery, turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, pepper, and broth. The recipe I used called for a bunch of water, but it also called for putting bones in it (I'm assuming to make some kind of stock/broth) so...I just went with vegetable broth.
After that simmers for a bit, in goes some chopped up parsley, tomato paste thinned with water, and a handful of lentils.
With a few minutes of cooking left, the pasta is added. Harira can be made many different ways, and I've seen it with both rice and vermicelli pasta (my recipe called for either). Since I use rice all the time, but I never use vermicelli, I decided on the road less traveled. The vermicelli is broken up into smaller pieces so it's a bit easier to eat with a spoon. I bet this would be good with some couscous too. The final step before serving is to mix in "tadouira" which is just a mixture of flour and water used as a thickener.
It's topped with a bit of fresh cilantro and since I felt it needed a little something extra, I reached into my spice cabinet for the first interesting spice blend and pulled out some za'atar, which is not Moroccan but Middle Eastern. I totally forgot that I had ras el hanout on hand, which actually would have been much more appropriate since, you know, it's actually Moroccan.
Still, it worked! Despite it feeling and looking really heavy, this is actually a pretty healthy soup. It's very filling and comforting, but has lots of ingredients that are good for you. I wish I had used maybe half the celery I did, though. If I reduced that, I think it would taste more like traditional Moroccan tomato-based dishes, which is what I was hoping for with this soup.
Recipes Used: Harira
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