Tuesday, November 21, 2006

The Famous Libayn Soup!!

Lots of bloggers have asked me to post about the Libyan Soup, and finally I'm able to post the pictures I've taken in the process of preparing this recipe.



I hope you find the instructions easy to follow and if you have any questions or concerns (cofman), please do ask !.. And here we go, let's start cooking:

Ingredients

1 Table spoon ghee, leveled.
1 Small onion, chopped.
1/4 Kg boneless lamb meat or boneless chicken meat, cut into small cubes.
2 Ripe tomatoes, diced
1/2 Table spoon tomato paste.
1/2 Cup cooked chickpeas (Humus), drained ( you can use canned chickpeas)
1/4 Cup Orzo.
3/4 Liter water.
1 Tea spoon Bzar or Baharat (you can use All Spices, if Bzar is not available).
1 Tea spoon ground red pepper (if you prefer it very hot, you can double the amount).
Salt.
Ground dried mint for garnish.


Directions:

1 - Heat ghee in a saucepan, and saute the onion .

2-Turn up the heat, add meat cubes.

3-Saute while stirring frequently until meat is brown, about 5 minutes.

4-Lower the heat, add diced tomatoes, tomato paste, salt, bzar or spices, and repepperer.

5-Mix everything well, and cook for 3 minute or so while stirring.

6-Add the drained chickpeas.

7- Add the water (enough to cover the meat), turn up the heat, and bring the water to boil.

8-Then, lower the heat, put the lid on. Simmer on low heat until meat is cooked ( about 45 minutes or so).

9- Add Orzo, and simmer till cooked (about 10 min).

10- Before serving, sprinkle crushed dried mint leaves.

11-Serve with Lemon wedges to squeeze into the soup and bread.

Bon appetite!!!


More tips and notes:

*if you were using chicken, you need to add chopped garlic to the recipe and saute it with onions.
How to chop onions.
More information about spices
encyclopedia of spices

9 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

Thanks a lot my good friend, good pics and clear and simple instructions,,, I will let you know of my ‘soup’ as soon as I make one,,,,,,,,,, mean time: there is a rotten blog somewhere ( can’t name it, very confidential unfortunately), if you have questions you know where to go – thanks a lot

LadyCroc said...

So the tiny macaroni resembling rice are called orzo?!
I know them in Arabic as bird seed; but I think that is originally an Egyptian expression.

BTW, the "Libyan soup" is known thru out the entire North Africa, in Alger and Morocco they call it Harira...and as i commented earlier, there are as many recipes for Libyan soup as there are female Libyans!

You can add all kinds of greens into the soup but the basic ingredients are always tomato, chili and meat and orzo. Just remember: the longer the Libyan soup has cooked, the better it tastes..

StarLit said...

me, too. i didn't know the name of this little macronni, so i started looking for pasta types and that's when i got acrross this picture,

http://artfiles.art.com/images/-/Pasta-Types-Print-C11731477.jpeg

and they are calle ORZO!

Lebeeya said...

I thought they were called "lisan al 3asfoor' ? Thats what we call them.

I love sharba lebeeya! Yum.

Anonymous said...

I really love your recipes section... it's great, gizving lots of fantastic ideas... please keep it up.. I'll try the Leebyan soup today, I'm sure it's nice.

StarLit said...

oh, thank you HodHod!

Bobby D. said...

gathering the ingredients to try this recipe. thanks!

StarLit said...

you are welcome d. chedwick bryant, and let me know how did you find it!