The above bowl of sunshine above is one of our favorite soups around here. In fact, we recently both said that we may even, if we had to, choose this soup over gumbo (gasp!). Thankfully, we don't have to choose.
Harira recipes are all of the internet, of course, and in many cookbooks (there's a vegetarian version in Crescent Dragonwagon's Dairy Hollow House Soup & Bread book, for instance, which I recently picked up in Lawrence when Beck and I went shopping there. Some recipes use noodles, others use rice, some have lamb, some have chicken. My version here is based on Emeril Lagasse's found here. All of the recipes that I've found, though, have some similarities--chickpeas and lentils in a gorgeous tomato and ginger laced broth. Want to learn more? Check out About.com's Moroccan Food page or Wikipedia's entry. My goals here were to make this faster and less processed than my usual. I started making this with seitan chunks (the Seitanic Log O'greatness worked well, as it has cinnamon in it and the flavors worked well here), then progressed to Butler's Soy Curls. One of my food goals this year, though, is to use fewer analogues and we'd been saying forever that we thought just upping the bean levels would do the trick--and it did. If you read some of the history, you'll find that there are a multitude of variations here. For instance, I've swapped out different types of lentils. Any lentils in your cupboard will do. I used green ones in this version as they hold up better and I wanted there to be plenty of variation in the textures. If you have meat or a meat substitute in here and the texture is more varied already, plain old brown ones work, as would yellow and red lentils. If you don't have a pressure cooker (thanks, Joe!), you want to plan a bit ahead and watch the salt level in the beans as they cook (salty liquids make it hard to get your beans tender, but the pressure cooker helps counteract that). I'd follow Emeril's soaking instructions if you don't have the pressure cooker or hot soak the chickpeas first by bringing them to a boil for 2 minutes, turning off the heat and covering them and letting them sit for an hour. Drain and proceed as if you had soaked overnight. Vegan Harira Adapted from Emeril Lagasse's recipe. Toss the following in your pressure cooker: 1 cup diced onion 1 clove minced garlic 3 ribs of celery diced 5 ounces chickpeas 5 ounces lentils 28 ounces diced tomatoes with their juice (canned) 2 teaspoons ground ginger root 2 teaspoons turmeric 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1 teaspoon ground pepper 6 cups of water or vegetable stock (I used my non-chicken broth from this magic recipe) 1/2 cup brown jasmine rice I set my cooker for 40 minutes, which was just about perfect. I did a quick release on the pressure, as we were hungry! When you are ready to serve, taste it, adding any spices you need, and the juice of 1/2 a lemon to the pot. Garnishes: Fresh cilantro Fresh parsley (I had some gremolata in the freezer that I used) Dried parsley stirred in works, too, in a pinch. Lemon juice Hot sauce Approximately 6 servings.
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Who's dishing?Angel lives in Camden, Arkansas where she writes stuff and sometimes sends it out to other people to read. She used to grade papers, but not anymore. Check out her main site to see what she's up to lately. Archives
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