Lablabi
Chickpeas in a cumin and garlic broth poured over torn stale bread, with a raw egg cracked in and stirred through the heat. The breakfast of Tunis, eaten out of a bowl with a spoon.
Photograph credit: Lablabi 1 by Touzrimounir · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons · this resized copy is shared under the same licence
The bread goes in the bowl and the broth is poured over it, never the other way round — bread simmered in the pot dissolves into paste, where bread hit with boiling broth at the table softens but keeps its shape for the ten minutes it takes to eat. Stale bread is not a thrift measure but a requirement, since fresh bread collapses instantly. The egg is cracked into the hot bowl and stirred, so it sets in threads rather than poaching whole.
Lablabi: Step by Step
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Tip the chickpeas and their liquid into a pan with the water, garlic, 2 tbsp cumin, salt and 3 tbsp olive oil.
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Bring to a simmer and cook 30 minutes, until the broth has taken on the garlic and thickened slightly. Crush a spoonful of chickpeas against the pan to thicken it further.
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Divide the torn stale bread between four deep bowls. Do not be shy — it should half fill each one.
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Crack a raw egg into each bowl on top of the bread.
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Ladle the boiling broth and chickpeas straight over the egg and stir immediately with a spoon. The egg will set in threads through the broth.
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Top each bowl with a teaspoon of harissa, capers, olives, and tuna if using.
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Finish with olive oil, lemon juice and a last pinch of cumin, and eat at once.
Related guide: Ingredient substitutions.
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Worth Getting Right
- Stale bread only. Fresh bread turns to paste.
- Broth over bread in the bowl, never bread into the pot.
- The broth must be boiling when it hits the egg.
Swaps and Variations
- 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 to Serve With It
Sweet mint tea · Extra harissa · A boiled egg on the side
Keeping and Reheating
The broth keeps refrigerated 4 days and improves. Assemble bowls fresh; assembled lablabi does not keep.
Lablabi Nutrition Facts
Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. How the figures are worked out.
Vegetarian when made without the tinned tuna in oil.
Your notes on this recipe
Cooked this? Keep a note for next time
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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