Chorba frik
Chorba is an umbrella term for an immense variety of soups and stews all the way from India to Eastern Europe. Other names for Chorba or Shorba are (Persian: شوربا, Arabic: شوربة, Amharic: ሾርባ), shorwa (Pashto: شوروا), ciorbă (Romanian), shurpa (Russian: шурпа), shorpa (Uyghur: شورپا, USY: шорпа), çorba (Turkish, pronounced [tʃoɾˈba]), shorpo (Kyrgyz: шорпо), and sorpa (Kazakh: сорпа). In the Indian subcontinent, the term shorba in Hindi (Hindi: शोरबा) simply means gravy, while in Urdu (Urdu: شوربہ) it may mean either gravy or soup.
Under the Chorba tree there are traditional dishes like Chorba Frik, from the Arabic word "freekeh" from farak, literally "to rub".
As usual there is not one way to prepare this dish, but most people agree on the tomato, the lamb or chicken, and the ras el hanout (or otherwise heavy spicing with coriander, and pepper). There is also an argument about whether the meat should be sealed and stir fried with the other ingredients or not, both ways work fine though.
Ingredients
- 1 kg lamb, with bones for the broth
- 3 large tomatoes diced
- 250gr preserved tomatoes
- 3 sticks of celery
- 2 bay leaves
- 5 cloves of garlic, minced
- 3 large onions, diced
- 1 tablespoon dried mint
- 1 cup coriander, finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon ras el hanout
- 1 liter of water
- 1 cup freekeh
- Salt to taste
Preparation
Make a broth, this will be the heart of your stew so spare no resources on this step; first cut up the lamb and seal it adding only salt, then add the onions and 3 minced garlic cloves. Stir your meat until the onions have become transparent. Now add water and the bay leaf, set the heat to medium and let it boil with the lid on for at least one hour, if you have time make it 3 hours to extract the bone marrow into the broth.
When you are happy with your broth, chop and add the vegetables, and the ras el hanout (which is mostly; cardamom, cumin, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, allspice, dry ginger, coriander seed, peppercorn, paprika, fenugreek, and dry turmeric) and the mint, half a cup of coriander and the rest of the garlic. Let it boil for 30 minutes before the last step.
When your stew has the right consistency, use 1 cup of freekeh and rinse it, add it to the stew and wait 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. After you have adjusted the salt and pepper serve in a large bowl and garnish with the leftover coriander leaves.
This stew will feed 4 hungry stewlovers.