An Autumn Treat: Moroccan Soup

Posted by Coralie on Sep 19, 2011 in News | 0 comments

When the autumn rain and chill trap you indoors, I comfort myself with making rich, fragrant soups. They warm you from inside! My favourite is this Moroccan one – the rice in it adds texture to it and make it a very satisfying meal. Let alone healthy!

This one serves four.

Ingredients:

400g of breast chicken

A little oil

1 onion

2 carrots

2 sticks celery

1 leek

1 garlic clove

The juice of one lemon

A handful of raisins

3 tablespoon of cumin

A little black pepper

1 tablespoon of honey

A little Tabasco

50g rice

1 litre chicken stock

Directions:

Cut the chicken breast in cubes. Heat a little oil in a frying pan, add the meat and let it brown gently for a couple of minutes. Put the meat aside.

Use the same pan to cook a chopped onion until soft.

Add to the onion the sliced carrots, celery, leek and the crushed garlic. Cook for a few minutes, stirring regularly.

Add the raisins, cumin, black pepper, honey and Tabasco. Mix well to wrap every piece of vegetable in the spices.

Almost there! The chicken, rice, lemon juice and chicken stock can now all go in.

Simmer for 20-25mn. The aromas will invade the whole house, and you will have everyone checking on you in no time.

Here are a few ideas to make soups more fun:

To make it more of a whole dish than a starter, you can always add rice like for this one, but also lentils, chickpeas, Asian noodles… Be adventurous!

I love to serve soups with three little bowls on the side: one with grated gruyere (the nuttiness of this cheese works particularly well with pumpkin), one with Greek yogurt, another with chopped coriander. You can try chopped nuts too for extra crunchiness. It makes it a little bit more festive and it works very well with kids as they can invent a funny face with the ingredients (as long as they eat it all afterwards!)

Cook some bacon until crisp and serve either on top or broken in tiny pieces to be sprinkled on.

Make some croutons! Use any leftover bread, brush with garlic, drizzle with olive oil and leave in the oven at 200 degrees for 30mn. It is particularly nice to place it at the bottom of the bowl before pouring the soup on it.

Use pastry cutters to cut shapes in bread and lightly toast them in a frying pan. With sweeter recipes, try brioche.

Which is your favourite alliance of flavour? We love unusual ones!

Photography by Miss Ginsu and Lucy Crabapple.