Cooking the Chronicle – Jan 17

Truly chaotic squash chopping.
Truly chaotic squash chopping.

Soup! So much soup! The title of week’s recipe (“Chickpea and lentil soup,” Jan 17) does not even come close to describing this dish—it’s packed with hearty vegetables, legumes, and spices. I would have named it something like “Cozy Moroccan/Tunisian/Algerian vegetable soup and lentil with warming spices.” The main flavor of this soup comes from the spice ras el hanout, which I believe is most commonly found in these North African countries.

This recipe also makes an enormous amount of soup. Truly the most. Pull out your largest soup pot and some good Tupperware to store your leftovers. I ended up starting with my too-small Le Creuset and called in backup with an overflow pot once it got unwieldy for the first.

The most time consuming part of this recipe, other than letting it simmer for about 2 hours, is chopping the vegetables. This is where I got my three-year-old involved. The potatoes were hard and tough for her to cut, but she had a field day hacking away at the zucchini. I hope any of my family or friends who eat this soup with us will forgive me for the uniformly diced carrots, celery, potatoes, and onions, and the totally chaotic squash in their bowls.

Unfortunately, when I was making this dish it was late in the evening. Even though I boast a pretty well stock spice drawer and I swear I have cooked with ras el hanout before, I could not find it anywhere in my collection. And I really really didn’t want to put on my winter gear and head out in the cold to hunt it down. I knew ras el hanout was a blend and I thought perhaps I had most of the components to make my own. So I looked up a recipe which called for TWELVE different spices—cumin, ginger, turmeric, cinnamon, black pepper, white pepper, coriander, cayenne, allspice, nutmeg, cloves, and salt. Believe it or not, I had all of these so we were off to the races blending our own mix.

With the cayenne and addition of harissa, this was warm in the spice sense (cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, cloves, etc.) and warm in the חריף חריף (harif) sense.

So here’s the thing. We’re not much of a soup family. And on top of that, if we’re eating soup, a tomato-based broth is usually not the way we go. (Although I eat tomatoes now, I spent most of my childhood avoiding them, pasta sauces, pizza sauce and tomato soup.) But a bowl of this felt manageable to me—even slightly addictive from the perfect level of heat. It would be even better with a huge crusty baguette.

We kept half of the batch for ourselves and sent half back with family to Maryland for my dad. The whole time I was making my spice blend I kept thinking, “this recipe would be one my dad would love,” thanks to the heavy handed spices. He also has quite the spice collection hidden in tins around the kitchen.

Honestly, I am not sure I would make this recipe for my family again, even though I would categorize it as quite good. But I will surely be adding this to my meal train rotation, especially when sending a meal to someone in the cold months.

About the Author
Rachel Fauber is a home cook who looks forward to the recipes in the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle each week. She has lived in Squirrel Hill since 2021, moving here with her husband and daughter after living in both Jerusalem and Washington, DC. When she's not tinkering in the kitchen or drinking lots of coffee with friends, Rachel leads marketing and communications for the global nonprofit, Ashoka.
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