Name: Chorba Frik
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 55 min
Total time: 1 h 15 min
Yield: 6 servings
Cuisine: Tunisian
Ingredients: 400 g lamb shoulder, cut into 2 cm cubes; 150 g cracked freekeh, rinsed and picked over; 1 onion, finely chopped; 2 celery sticks, finely chopped; 3 tbsp olive oil; 2 tbsp tomato purée; 1 tbsp harissa; 400 g tin chopped tomatoes; 1 tsp ground coriander; 1 tsp ground caraway; 1 ¾ tsp fine sea salt; ½ tsp black pepper; 1 ¾ litres water; 50 g flat-leaf parsley, chopped; 3 tbsp lemon juice

Chorba Frik

Lamb and freekeh soup thickened by the grain itself, sharpened with harissa and finished with a great deal of parsley. The Ramadan soup across the whole Maghreb.

1 hr 15 min total Serves 6 servings Easy

Freekeh releases starch as it cooks and is the only thickener here — no flour, no blending — so it needs the full forty minutes and cannot be rushed. It also has to be rinsed and picked over first, because it is a fire-roasted field grain and genuinely arrives with grit in it. The harissa goes in early, fried into the tomato base, which is where it belongs in a soup: added at the end it tastes raw and sits on top.

How to Make Chorba Frik

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Brown the lamb in the oil over high heat for 6 minutes. Add the onion and celery and cook 8 minutes more.
Stir in the tomato purée and harissa and fry them for 2 minutes, until the paste darkens and the oil turns red.
Add the tomatoes, ground coriander, caraway, salt, pepper and water. Bring to the boil.
Rinse the freekeh in several changes of water, picking out grit, and add it to the pot.
Simmer 40 minutes, stirring occasionally so the grain does not catch on the base, until the freekeh is tender and the soup has thickened by itself.
Take off the heat and stir in most of the parsley and the lemon juice.
Serve with the rest of the parsley and more lemon at the table.

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Tips That Matter

Fry the harissa into the base. Added late it tastes raw.
Rinse the freekeh properly — it carries grit.
The grain is the thickener. Give it the full 40 minutes.

What to Serve With It

Khobz tabouna · Lemon wedges · Dates

Keeping and Reheating

Refrigerated for 4 days and it thickens considerably; loosen with water. It freezes for 3 months.

What's in a Serving

No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (some ingredient lines cannot be read). Why some recipes have none.

Dairy-Free No Added Sugar