Everyday Dorie: Moroccan-Spiced Chickpea and Noodle Soup

February 26, 2021 at 3:42 pm | Posted in cook the book fridays, everyday dorie, groups, savory things, soups | 7 Comments
Tags: everyday dorie, savory, soup

It’s now been almost a year that I’ve been providing daily WFH lunch (with clean-up service) to the other person in this house, and I’m always looking to cook things that will do double duty as dinner one night and lunch the next with minimal extra effort. Bonus points for things that make enough for a couple of lunches, as is the case with this Moroccan-Spiced Chickpea and Noodle Soup. This soup is Dorie’s version of harira, a traditional Moroccan soup with tomatoes, chickpeas, lentils and lots of spices. I’ve seen recipes for versions of harira with and without meat, and versions with and without noodles…this one has both, so it’s very hearty and filling.

The optional meat in this soup comes in the form of meatballs, or really balls of meat, as they’re just straight-up ground meat (I used turkey) rolled into small balls. While they do cook in the simmering soup, the balls can definitely use some s&p or they will be under-seasoned.

Overall, though, this soup is very flavorful. I did reduce the 3.5 tablespoons of ground ginger, which sounded like so much (I didn’t even have that much!), it was possibly a typo. Not sure about that, so I’m interested to see what others did. I left out the saffron entirely because my small supply was already reserved for something else, and this soup has so many other strong, fragrant spices in the mix that I thought I could get away with it. The noodles I cooked in separate pot, because I knew I’d have leftovers and didn’t want them to get bloated while sitting in the soup.

For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see how the group liked this one.

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I also skipped the saffron and cut the ginger. Am pretty sure you got a lot more servings than just one lunch and dinner! Am I right. I ate for either lunch or dinner all week. Tonight I am having a meatball sandwich. I knew I had had enough soup but wanted to save the meatballs. Glad you enjoyed.

Comment by Mary Hirsch— February 26, 2021 #

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- a meatball sandwich- good idea! i got one dinner and two lunches (each for two people, so 6 servings total), so it was a good make for me!
  
  Comment by steph (whisk/spoon)— February 26, 2021 #
  
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I am right there with you on nearly a year of providing WFH lunches..and clean up haha! I thought it would be a few weeks and here we are. I agree…so nice when a dinner can do double duty for the next day lunch. This was one of those for us too and we loved it both days. I also could not get over the amount of spices this recipe called for but I went ahead and made it as called for…and surprising me and my family, we absolutely loved it. Glad you both did too!

Comment by isthisakeeper— February 26, 2021 #

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I used what I had for the ground ginger too. I had almost 3T. I also left out the saffron. We just added more liquid upon reheat which seemed to work fine.

Comment by Diane Zwang— February 26, 2021 #

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I put in a lot of fresh ginger, but my family loves all things spicy. I guess the lentils, chickpeas and noodles balanced out the flavor, so it was not an issue. Since I have fresh ginger, I put it in the meatballs too. They are quite tasty. Even without the meat, I bet the soup is just as wonderful.

Comment by Shirley @ EverOpenSauce— February 27, 2021 #

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With or without meat, with or without noodle, the soup would still be fantastic. Without ginger, that can be tricky. My family loves all things spicy, so it was a go. Nevertheless, cooking the noodle separately helps.

Comment by Shirley @ EverOpenSauce— February 27, 2021 #

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This was SO great the first day and the following days. Love a recipe that works even better as leftovers!

Comment by Mardi (eat. live. travel. write.)— February 28, 2021 #

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