In Morocco, harira is “served literally every evening as part of the fast-breaking meal known as iftar” through Ramadan, and as one cook in Fès put it to National Geographic, “there are as many recipes for harira in Morocco as there are cooks”. Some use lentils, some chickpeas, some both. Some add rice, others broken vermicelli. Most add a little meat. Nearly all finish it with a flour-and-water thickener and serve it with lemon.
It comes after the dates. The Muslim Council of Britain’s Ramadan guide says that “as per tradition, Muslims break their fast with dates and water, followed by a cooked meal”, and NHS Greater Manchester’s advice is the same in other words: “break your fast with dates and water, followed by a light soup”. A bowl of harira is that soup.
It is also, almost by accident, one of the best store-cupboard soups there is. Everything structural in it keeps for months: lentils, chickpeas, tomatoes, spices, pasta, flour. The one thing a cupboard cannot supply is the great handful of fresh coriander and parsley, and we say so in the substitutions.
- Heat the oil, add the dried onion, ginger, cinnamon, turmeric and pepper, and stir for a minute until the spices smell toasted.
- Add the tomato purée and fry it for a minute, then the chopped tomatoes, rinsed lentils, herbs, crumbled stock cube and 1.2 litres of water.
- Simmer, lid half on, for 30 minutes, until the lentils are soft.
- Add the drained chickpeas and the pasta, broken into short pieces. Cook 8 to 10 minutes, until the pasta is done.
- Thicken it. Whisk the flour into 200 ml of cold water until smooth, then pour it into the soup in a thin stream, stirring all the time. Simmer five minutes more, still stirring, until it turns silky and the floury taste has gone.
- Off the heat, stir in most of the lemon juice. Taste, salt, and add the rest of the lemon if it needs lifting. It usually does.
Serve with the dates alongside, the way it is eaten at iftar.
Serves 4.