isithalal.food · Recipes

Harira with Halal beef

Moroccan harira: a spiced tomato, chickpea and lentil soup with Halal beef, thickened with cornflour and served with coriander and lemon.

Moroccan · Main · Easy · 6 bowls · 110 min

Each method follows published technique for the dish, and every Halal substitution is checked against the ingredient pages we cite. Photographs come from our ingredient library rather than the finished dish.

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Why Halal checks matter here

Harira has no pork or alcohol, but its beef is only Halal from Halal-slaughtered cattle, and a version made with stock needs the stock checked too.

Halal-critical ingredients

• Beef: Beef is Halal only from Halal slaughter. Buy braising beef from a Halal butcher or a certified pack. See Beef and Harira.
• Stock, if used: This recipe uses water, but some harira recipes use meat or chicken stock, which needs Halal slaughter too. Keep to water, or use Halal-certified stock. See Harira.

Ingredients

Soup

• 15 ml (1 tbsp) olive oil
• 300 g (10½ oz) Halal braising beef, trimmed of excess fat, cut into 3 cm pieces
• 1 (1) small onion, finely chopped
• 1 tsp (1 tsp) ground turmeric
• ½ tsp (½ tsp) ground black pepper
• ¼ tsp (¼ tsp) ground ginger
• 1½ tsp (1½ tsp) salt
• 1 tbsp (1 tbsp) fresh parsley, chopped
• 1 tbsp (1 tbsp) tomato purée
• a pinch (a pinch) saffron
• 70 g (⅓ cup) dried chickpeas, soaked overnight and drained (or 140 g canned, drained)
• 6 (6) large tomatoes, grated or blitzed
• 100 g (3½ oz) celery (2 stalks), finely chopped
• 1 l (4 cups) boiling water
• 80 g (⅓ cup + 1 tbsp) dried green lentils
• 3 tbsp (3 tbsp) cornflour (or plain flour), mixed with 3 tbsp water

To serve

• 2 tbsp (2 tbsp) fresh coriander, chopped
• to serve (to serve) lemon wedges

Method

1. Brown the beef. Heat the oil in a large flameproof casserole over a medium heat. Add the beef, onion, turmeric, pepper, ginger and salt and leave for 5 to 10 minutes to brown the meat lightly, stirring now and then.
2. Simmer. Add the parsley, tomato purée, saffron, chickpeas, tomatoes and celery with the litre of boiling water. Bring to the boil, cover, lower the heat and simmer for 1 hour.
3. Add the lentils. Stir in the lentils, cover and cook for 20 minutes more, until the chickpeas, meat and lentils are cooked.
4. Thicken and serve. Mix the cornflour with 3 tbsp water until smooth, stir it into the soup and simmer for 5 minutes until it thickens and turns velvety. Scatter over the coriander and serve hot with lemon wedges for squeezing.

Allergens

celery

How this recipe was researched

Method adapted from BBC Good Food's 'Harira' (braising beef browned with onion, turmeric, black pepper and ginger; parsley, tomato purée, saffron, chickpeas, grated tomatoes and celery simmered in 1 litre of water for an hour; green lentils added for 20 minutes; thickened with cornflour; finished with coriander and lemon). We specified Halal beef. The recipe uses water, not stock. Timings follow the published technique rather than a kitchen test.

Photograph from our ingredient library: a bowl of harira with dates, not the finished dish.