Hlelem
A thick soup of hand-broken noodles, three kinds of bean and a lot of greens, red with harissa. Winter food from the north, and a meal rather than a starter.
Photograph credit: Hlalem by IssamBarhoumi · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons · this resized copy is shared under the same licence
Hlelem, Step by Step
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Soften the onion in 4 tbsp oil for 8 minutes, then add the garlic and cook 2 minutes.
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Stir in the tomato purée and harissa and fry 2 minutes until the oil runs red.
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Add the soaked broad beans, the caraway, coriander, salt and water. Simmer 40 minutes until the broad beans are tender.
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Add the chickpeas and white beans and simmer 8 minutes.
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Add the broken noodles and cook 10 minutes, stirring so they do not clump, until tender but not collapsing.
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Stir in the shredded greens and cook 2 minutes only, until just wilted and still bright.
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Off the heat, add the parsley, coriander, lemon juice and the last of the oil. Serve very hot.
Related guide: Prep, cook and total time.
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Small Things That Help
- Noodles for the last ten minutes only.
- Greens for two minutes, so they stay green.
- It thickens as it stands — serve it looser than you want it.
Ingredient Swaps
- An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.
What Goes With Hlelem
- Khobz tabouna
- Harissa
- Lemon wedges
Storing & Reheating Hlelem
Refrigerated for 3 days; the noodles soften and it thickens a great deal. Loosen with water.
Hlelem: Questions and Answers
How long does Hlelem take to make?
25 minutes of preparation and 1 hour of cooking, plus 8 hours of soaking the broad beans, so allow 9 hours 25 minutes from start to finish. The recipe serves 6.
Hlelem Nutrition Facts
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.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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