Another cold bright day here in Edinburgh and I'm making more soup. Bessara is a spicy Moroccan soup often made with dried broad beans (fava beans) which can also be made with chickpeas or split peas instead. I don't have access to dried broad beans, so I opted for yellow split peas instead.
Bessara
250 g yellow split peas
1 medium onion, finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
3 Tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp cumin
large pinch of cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste
700 mls (3 cups) vegetable stock
Saute onion and garlic in a small amount of vegetable stock for 4-5 minutes. Add spices, split peas, parsley and remaining vegetable stock, bring to the boil, turn down heat and simmer for 20-30 minutes, until split peas are soft and adding additional vegetable stock if necessary. Blend until smooth and serve with a garnish of chopped fresh parsley.
Serves 3
I enjoyed this soup, although I had to increase the spices from the original recipe. I served mine with a couple of mini wholemeal pitta breads and a topping of salad leaves as well as the parsley garnish. It would also be good with a garnish of defrosted frozen petits pois as in Robin Roberston's Yellow Split Pea Soup with Green Pea Garnish from Vegan Planet which is one of my favourite split pea soups
Soup is one of my favourite meals and it's so easy to make it Eat To Live friendly. North Africa offers lots of inspiration for soups so I plan to try several this week.
Two of my favourite cookbooks covering this region are A Vegan Taste of North Africa by Linda Majzlik and Middle Eastern Vegetarian Cookery by David Scott which is no longer in print but available from Amazon.uk for only £0.01. I used these 2 books as a starting point for this recipe and then added my own variations.
Harira
1 onion, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
1/2 tsp freshly grated ginger
1 can (1 and 1/2 cups) of mixed beans
50 g red lentils
1 can (1 and 1/2 cups) of diced tomatoes
500 ml vegetable stock
1 Tbsp tomato paste
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp ground coriander
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
3 Tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped
Juice of half a lemon
I also added around 200 g sliced mushrooms and 3 handfuls of chopped kale
Saute the onion and garlic in a small amount of vegetable stock for around 5 minutes, add red pepper and grated ginger and cook for a further 2 minutes. Add beans, lentils tomatoes and remaining vegetable stock. Stir in the tomato paste, herbs and spices, plus kale and mushrooms (if adding). Cover and simmer for around 20 minutes. Add lemon juice and serve.
I topped mine with some additional green salad leaves to bump up the micronutrients
I ended up working for 10 hours yesterday and ran out of time to cook. Today my virtual journey has moved across to North Africa and I'm starting off in Morocco. Some of my favourite recipes come from this part of the world and I'm going to do my best this week to try out one new recipe a day to add to my repertoire, moving across from Morocco in the west to Egypt in the east.
My first Moroccan recipe is Ful Gnaoua, a spicy stew with black eyed peas. I love the spices of North Africa and this stew is delicious. Using canned or pre-cooked black-eyed peas it's really quick and easy to make.
Ful Gnaoua
3 cups of cooked black-eyed beans
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 1/2 tsp paprika
2 tomatoes, finely chopped
Large pinch of cayenne pepper
1 cup of vegetable stock
3 Tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
Saute the onion, garlic and grated fresh ginger in a little vegetable stock for 4-5 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and cook for a further 10 minutes. Serve with steamed green vegetables
