Moroccan Hirira Ren Lentil Soup (Vegan!)

So I haven’t really spent much time in Africa or the Middle East, except for a short stint in Egypt. This  was not a meal I ever had when I was travelling through Egypt though. This is just something that I used to have at this Mediterranean place by my work that had cheap soup for those lunch breaks when I forgot to bring a meal from home.

I re-discovered it recently when I was catching up with some old friends from high school at a Mediterranean place downtown. It’s a super delicious tomato and lentil soup that is just the right mix of heartiness and lightness, perfect for the change of seasons.

Research has told me that Hirira is quite a common soup as a starter in Morocco, but it also commonly used during the month of Ramadan to break fast. As with many national staples, recipes for Hirira often differ within communities. The recipe that I prefer is a little heartier than some of the lighter versions out there. I like to include chickpeas as well as red lentils. This means it is a super protein packed soup with a little spicy kick to heat up those rainy spring nights!

Ingredients:

• 1 large white onion
• 2 medium sized carrots
• 2 celery stalks
• A heafty handful of Kale, chopped
• EVOO
• 1/3 of a cup of parsley leaves and stems
• 1/2 cup of cilantro leaves and stems
• 2 tbsp. of minced garlic
• 2 tbsp of minced ginger
• 1 1/2 tsp of Turmeric
• 1 tsp. Cumin
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tbsp. of Hungarian paprika (at least, I usually put in 2 tbsp. because I love spice)
• 1 tbsp. of dried chili flakes (optional)
• 1 cup of dried red lentils
• 1 can of chick peas
• 1 can of crushed tomatoes (I used a can of tomato sauce and that was good too)
• 1 box of vegetable stock (although for the recipe on the pictures I used chicken stalk, it was what I had in the fridge at the time, but use vegetable if you want it vegan).
• Some chopped cilantro to garnish
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Coat a soup pot with a decent amount of Olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot, celery, kale, ginger, garlic and a little salt and pepper and saute until the onions start to brown. Now its time to add the spices; add the turmeric, cumin, paprika, cinnamon and chili flakes and saute for another couple of minutes. Heating the spices up is the best way to release their flavors.

Add the red lentils and cook for a few minutes to let them soften. After, add the chick peas (with the canning juice), tomato sauce and vegetable broth. Bring the soup to a boil, then reduce to simmer and let cook semi-lidded for about 30 minutes.

Add more broth or water if you want the soup to be more runny (I like it thick ;p)

I heated up some naan bread as an accompaniment. Serve and sprinkle some cilantro on top!

Traditionally I think they nix the naan and serve this with lemon, dates, philo dough and Aleppo chilies.

Enjoy!

Let me know what you think!

Sri Lankan Chicken Curry

So, as I have stated in some previous posts, I used to live in the wonderful country of Sri Lanka. Besides all of the friendly people, tropical rain-forests and beautiful beaches, Sri Lanka has some of the best food I have encountered. My family only spent about two years there, but we tried to eat as much of the local food as we could. Our helper and cook wrote down some of our favorite dinner dishes and I treasure these recipes.

Today I am going to show you how to make some delicious Sri Lankan coconut chicken curry. In Sri Lanka, they often like to make curry dishes with coconut milk, instead of cow milk or tomato based curried that are popular up north in India. Many of the dishes are similar to the ones from Southern India, but Sri Lanka definitely has a distinct cuisine that should not be confused with Indian cuisine.

This particular curry we like to enjoy with Sri Lankan Daal, deviled potatoes and green beans (recipe coming soon), Coconut Sambol and Basmati rice.

Lets get started!

Ingredients:

• 1 kg of chicken (2-3 breasts, 4 small wings or drumsticks)
• 1 Tbsp Chili Powder
• 1 Tbsp Roasted Curry Powder
• 1 Tsp Turmeric Powder
• 1/2 Tsp Fenugreek Seeds
• 2 Onions (chopped)
• 4 Garlic cloves (minced)
• A square inch of fresh ginger (minced)
• 2-3 Cinnamon sticks (in 1 inch pieces)
• 1/2 cup Curry leaves
• 3 Tbsp oil (preferably Grapeseed oil, but olive oil will do)
• 1 cup coconut cream (or the top creamy layer in a can of coconut milk plus some of the juice). Most of the time I just use a whole can, because I like it extra coconut-y.
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Many of these ingredients you might have to search for in an Indian or Asian food market. If nothing like that exists in your neighborhood the internet is a beautiful place and you can get almost anything through amazon.

Cut the chicken into 2.5 cm sized bites. Place the chicken in a bowl and mix with the chili, curry powder, turmeric and salt and pepper to create a dry rub marinade. You can do this the night before if you want to add extra flavor. I generally just marinate it for about 20 mins before I cook it and there is still plenty of flavor to go around. You should definitely do the dry run though because this seriously how you lock in the amazing flavor. I have found it’s so much more effective then adding the spices into the chicken after you have browned it.

Heat the oil in a sauce pan and fry the onion, garlic, ginger, curry leaves and cinnamon sticks until the onions start to look slightly cooked and translucent. Add in marinated chicken and cook until the chicken is browned. When you think the chicken is decently cooked through add the coconut cream and simmer for another 5-10 minutes.

Serve it over some Basmati rice and Enjoy!

(More pictures to come!)

To all the Sri Lankan viewers out there, how do you do your chicken curry?

Sri Lankan Coconut Sambol (Pol Sambol)

Coconut Sambol is typically a side dish you would serve with Sri Lankan curry. There are many different types of Sambol, the ones I liked the most were the coconut Sambol and Seeni Sambol, which consists of mainly chili, maldive fish and onions. Sambol in general is a chili based condiment; just about every country in Asia has a version of Sambol/Sambal. Coconut Sambol was especially delicious with curry because the freshness of the coconut almost cleanses the palate from the spicy curry dishes. In just about any restaurant or street vendor you go to in Sri Lanka that sells curry it will come with some kind of Sambol on the side. Some people argue that the coconut Sambol is the most popular “dish” in Sri Lanka because it is served with pretty much everything. I think it is a deliciously underrated element in Sri Lankan cuisine.

One of the ingredients in the Sambol is Maldive fish, which can be pretty hard to come by outside of Sri Lanka. Maldive fish is dried and cured tuna made in the Maldives and is a stable to Maldivian cuisine as well as Sri Lankan. It is often pounded into splinter pieces and sold in packets as a flavoring to dishes. In this recipe I was lucky enough to still have some Maldive fish packets from when I used to live in Sri Lanka. If you can find any you can easily replace it with another high quality dried fish flake or shrimp paste, or you can just go without it, but it wont taste exactly the same.

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp. Seeni Sambol mix (cloves, chili, maldive fish, curry leaf, screw pine, cardamom, cinnamon)
• The flesh of one fresh coconut or a half packet of unsweetened coconut flakes
• One lime
• One purple onion diced
• One small jalapeno diced

I know the Seeni Sambol mix might be super hard to come by. Here is a link to the website of the stuff I got in Sri Lanka, maybe you can find something similar in your local Indian market. I got really excited in the super market about the fresh coconut but shelling and grating fresh coconut is no easy task and I think from now on ill just try to find unsweetened shredded coconut instead.

Okay so firstly, if you are feeling adventurous and want to try shelling the flesh of a fresh coconut you have to first drain it of its juice. I like to save the juice, strain it and make a cocktail out of it with pomegranate juice and vodka, but that’s just me being an alcoholic who doesn’t like to throw good food away.

Cracking the coconut in half also proved difficult, I ended up just throwing it on my concrete patio in the backyard.

Once you get them halved you can use a knife to pry out all of the flesh. In Sri Lanka they had these nifty coconut shredders that would do all of the work for you. Sadly white people don’t know shit about coconuts.

Alrighty, so once you have de-fleshed the coconuts add the flesh to a food processor with the diced jalapeno.

Grind those baby’s to pulp! Well not quite… but get them pretty well chopped. Once thats done get those diced onions on a frying pan with some EVOO on a high heat and cook until they start to get a little translucent. Add in the Seeni Sambol mix and cook to release the flavors.

Add in the coconut and jalapeno mix and stir until well mix and heated. Cook for another few minutes to make sure all of the flavors are really melting together. Place is a bowl to cool before serving.

Add a few spoonfuls to any curry dish to add an intense amount of delicious flavor. I usually make this as a companion to my Sri Lankan Coconut Curry (recipe coming soon) and Sri Lankan Daal.

Definitely explore more Sri Lankan food if you haven’t before, its really good stuff and can be very different than Indian food.

I can eat these left overs for like a week after I made a whole Sri Lankan meal.

Let me know if you guys have any questions or submit your own version of these meals!

Enjoy 🙂

Sri Lankan Daal

My family moved to Sri Lanka when I was fifteen. We spent two years there and it was the most interesting experience of my life! While I lived in the Philippines for about 12 years and would spend my Summers in Washington, this was the first time I moved somewhere culturally different.

Sri Lanka is a beautiful country, with gorgeous beaches and luscious rain forests. My favorite thing about Sri Lanka, though, had to be the delicious food. We were lucky enough to have a house cleaner/cook who would make our dinners during the week. She would make us the most amazing dinners, of all kinds, but my favorites were always her Sri Lankan meals. When we left the country, she offered to write down her recipes. Although I have tried many many times to recreate the wonderful flavors of her meals, there always seems to be something missing. Ashoka, this one is for you.

Today I want to share her Daal recipe with you all. Daal is a lentil, and a staple in most of South East Asia. (Can be spelled as Dahl, Dal, Dhal). Some of the ingredients are hard to come by, depending on where you live. Here in Washington we have a huge immigrant population and you can find almost anything in the small specialty stores. It you can’t find it, Amazon.com can usually mail some ingredients to you. Sri Lankan Daal is generally made with coconut milk, so it is slightly different than how it is prepared in the Indian subcontinent.

Ingredients:

• 4 cups of Daal (lentils)
• 1 can coconut milk
• 3/4 cup of water
• 1 tbsp Curry powder
• 1/2 tsp Turmeric
• 1/4 tsp Fenugreek seeds
• 2 Cloves of garlic (minced)
• 4 small red onions (or 2 large ones) chopped
• 2 Green chilies (less if you are not a spicy food person)
• 2 Cinnamon sticks (in 1 inch pieces)
• 1/4 cup of Curry leaves
• 1 tsp salt

Okay, so first thing, if you are using dried lentils, you want to make sure the lentils have been soaking for at least 4 hours. I like to soak them overnight, or in the morning before work.

When you are ready to cook, drain the lentils then add them into a medium sized sauce pan. Add the water. Separate the coconut cream (the thick top layer) from the coconut juice in the can. Add the coconut juice. Add in all of the spices and onions and cook daal until soft, should be about 30 mins, or until most of the liquid has cooked and the lentils have thickened.

Don’t worry if you can’t find the cinnamon sticks, curry leaves or fenugreek seeds, it takes just as good without them. You can just use ground cinnamon (1 tsp) and more curry powder.

Add more water if needed. When the daal is soft add the remaining coconut cream and cook uncovered for about 2 mins. Eat with some Basmati Rice!

I usually make daal as a side dish with my Sri Lankan coconut curry and coconut Sambal. These recipes are coming soon!

Enjoy 🙂

Let me know what you guys think? How do you make your lentils?