Chorba Frik

Name: Chorba Frik
Total time: 1 h
Yield: 6
Cuisine: Tunisian
Ingredients: 150 g Frik (cracked green wheat); 400 g Lamb, in small pieces; 1 Onion, chopped; 2 tbsp Tomato purée; 150 g Chickpeas, cooked; 1 tsp Harissa; 20 g Flat-leaf parsley and mint, chopped; 3 tbsp Olive oil; 1 Lemon; 2 tsp Salt

A thin, tomato-red soup thickened with frik — smoked green wheat — and lamb, eaten every night of Ramadan and on any cold evening.

Fonte

Ricetta di Tunisian home kitchens · 🏺 Tradizionale · Everyday Tunisian cooking — harissa, olive oil, tuna and eggs, and the semolina that anchors the Friday table from Tunis to Sfax.

Maghrebi · Tunisian version — An ownerless traditional dish, so no cook is credited. The cited article confirms chorba as a soup family found across North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia under many spellings; the Tunisian chorba frik, thickened with cracked green wheat, is the version written here and the note says so. Quantities and method here are this book's own.

Background on Wikipedia ↗

Watch it being made · 3 videos

2mn miam ANTI-CHEF Yousef Al-Sahli

⏱ 60 min🍽 6 porzioni🔥 310 kcal🇹🇳 Tunisia🌶️

HalalSenza latticiniSenza frutta a guscio

Passaggi

Brown the lamb in olive oil, add the onion and cook until soft.
Stir in the tomato purée and harissa and cook 2 minutes so the paste loses its raw edge.
Add 2 L water and simmer 30 minutes, until the lamb is tender.
Rinse the frik and add it with the chickpeas. Simmer 20 minutes more, stirring often.
💡 Frik sinks and catches. Stir from the bottom every few minutes or the base scorches and the whole pot tastes of it.
Add the herbs, check the salt and loosen with hot water if it has gone too thick — it should be a soup, not a porridge.
Serve with lemon wedges to squeeze in at the table.

💡 Consigli

In Ramadan this is the first thing eaten after the fast, before anything heavier. That is what it is built for.
It thickens a lot as it stands. Thin it with hot water when reheating, and taste the salt again after.
The lemon is not optional. Without acid the soup tastes flat and heavy.