Bringing India (red lentils) and Morocco (spices & preserved lemons) together in a vegetable-packed ragout
Uh for wellbeing tonight I’m starting a new video as part of my series what’s in my fridge so what’s in your fridge what do you have around that can be used and that you can make dinner with I just went and rummaged through what I had and
I decided to make Moran soup and I’m going to be making it with the vegetable here my Moroccan soup is not traditional at all it’s going to have Moroccan flavors and so what I found in my fridge and I just realized I’m forgetting one thing and it’s spinach so I have spinach
You know what it looks like so that will be spinach added to it those are the vegetables that I found Red Onion leak carrots celery two pieces I’m going to use a little bit of garlic I found some ay chokes San Marzano Tomatoes I love those we have a farmer
At the farmers market that grows them they’re just beautiful they’re very meaty they are the best cooking Tomatoes there is you may see in Italian can tomato it says San marsano and that’s what this is I also have some broccoli now I’m usually don’t like to put
Broccoli in the soup because it tends to overcook it gets Brown I don’t really like it however because I have so many of them I even have more than that what I’ll do is I’ll cut the base I’ll save the florets this part for another dish
And then I’m going to use the stem that I’ll DIC into the soup and then the spinach those are the vegetables it’s going to be a red lentil Moroccan soup so I have red lentils this is my favorite Farm Larry is the farmer it’s just an awesome guy and he
Grows thousands of different variety of hairloom beans legumes grains and so those are coming from him I have some chicken born broth that I made now you know that I’m mostly plant-based I actually like to use a broth mostly because it has a lot of really good
Flavor and it’s just add a richness to the soup what is going to make it more kind the flavors are those two spice mix that I’m going to be using one is Ras Al anut it’s a classic Moroccan mix of different spices and this is Harissa
Which is going to bring it some heat the other thing that will be in there is olive oil and then finally I’m going to add another little uh flavor here we go is the label and it’s preserved lemon preserve lemons is very Moroccan thing and I’ll show you what I’m going to do
With this so those are going to be the ingredients that I will be using for the Moroccan soup here are all my ingredients and they’re ready to be cut I’m going to be cutting them in small dices I’ll start with the celery one important thing about cutting is whenever you have several
Ingredients you want to just have as much as possible the same cut and there’s a reason for this not only aesthetically it’s more attractive but it’s also that it will actually cook more evenly because if you have some pieces like this and one like this for
Example that size and this size this one is going to take three times as long to cook as this one it does make a difference in the end product I’m dicing my uh so the mea is the base of a lot of sauces and soups and
Stews and it’s a mix of onion carrots and celery so that’s forms the bases that’s what gives it the flavor dropping some on the floor now I’m going to do leaks as well as I showed you before and by the way everything is ready to be used and the
Leaks are washed and I didn’t show you how to wash leaks but you cut them in a half through most of the length and you run it on cold water you separate the leaf and you get the dirt out with your fingers that’s the best best way of
Cleaning leaks because the dirt gets into the cracks of the leaves I’m cutting my leaks adding that to Mya what helps with flavor is the act of sweating like sweating you want to cook your vegetables so the water that is contained in it is rendered so it does
Several things one it concentrates the flavor two it Al so if there is acidity if there is a little bitterness whatever there is it Smooths out the flavor so you always want to sweat your vegetable rather than just put everything in a pot we’re going to do this in stages I’ll
Show you when we get to the stove the broccoli as I said I’m going to be saving the fuet for another dish and then the leaves and the stems I’m going to be cutting them in the same size as the other one this broccoli is really fresh really beautiful broccoli again
From the farmers market you’re probably going to get sick and tired of hearing me talk about the farmers market and it makes a huge difference when you get food right at the source so I have my Mira I have my broccoli as you can see it’s separate from that because they’re
Going to be cooked separately I have my garlic peeled and I’m going to crush it whoop I keep putting things on the floor just like that and that I’m going to add to the me because it actually can cooked at the same time and I’m just going to
Leave it in big pieces like this again if I were to chop it very finely it would bring a complete different flavor profile to the soup so in this instance the flavor of the garlic is going to diffuse more slowly so there’s a reason behind everything so the Tomato the San
Marano I’m just going to cut them in half and with my fingers as you can see get the seeds out I don’t know if you can really see it very well I’m going to get the seeds and the the liquid out so like this all my vegetables are ready I
Have my spinach it’s just washed and chopped I have my lentils now the lentils I didn’t show you but I rinse them on the cold water until the water underneath came out relatively clear there is a lot of starch in them and the final thing that I’m going to show you
Is the preserved lemon you actually use only the skin with my knife I remove the pp so it’s the only the skin that is left I’m going to chop this very very finely this is very potent very strong it gives a unique lemon flavor to dishes so preserved lemons are made in an
Unusual way the lemons are cut cut in four 3/4 of the way and so the lemons is cut in four and then you separate the lemon and you pack it in with salt and then in turn you take all those lemons and you pack them in a glass jar or in a
Croc and you pack it with salt and you forget about it for two months I when I made it I found that two month was best a lot of the liquid is going to render that salt is going to somewhat melt and that’s going to create the liquid in
Which they are preserved and so the flavor as I said wish you were here to smell it is very strong and uniquely Moroccan I have all my ingredients ready I forgot to actually show you the a chokes which what did I do with them I cooked in the pressure cooker and
Overcook them I always do this so the a chooks what I’m doing is cutting the St them then removing the leaves and there is actually something to eat but not very much cuz they’re so little and I’m going to just remove all the leaves until I get to the tender ones and like
So that’s going to be the already choke heart I’m going to cut the top low heart and you can recognize this and then this in turn I’m cutting in half and then in very small pieces and this will be added at the end of the
Soup so here we are we are ready with everything and I’ll see you at the stove I’ve gathered all my ingredients on the stove to show you the order in which I’m going to be using them I got my pot going on a medium fire it’s hot already
Going to put a little bit of olive oil I’ll start with the m those are the vegetabl that are the hardest it will take the longest I will add the broccoli I’m going to let this sweat when most of the liquid has rendered I will add by
Spices cuz I want to cook the spices sort of dry with the vegetables that also brings the flavors out and I will add the tomato I will render it so everything is going to cook together the flavors are going to melt and it’s going to develop halfway through the cooking of
The tomatoes I will add my lentils once the lentils have cooked a little bit I will add my stock and I will probably add some water because I have a lot of vegetables and that don’t have that much liquid it is also very concentrated so you can see it’s very
Thick so I will add some water and I’m going to just let this cook so that will leave me with three items left which are the spinach the arti chokes and the present lemon so the oks they don’t need any time cooking because they’re already cooked the spinach I don’t want to cook
Them too long because I want to keep them green and I want it to be vibrant so they only need to cook for about 2 3 minutes that will be at the very end the preserved lemon I could actually put it at any time it doesn’t really matter so
Much so the idea here I make a sou to I pack as many vegetables as I can so I cook my veget vegetables add the liquid to it and I’ll make it a lot thicker than it actually needs to be I want a lot of flavor I want a lot of vegetables
I don’t put much liquid into it because I can always add more and this won’t have as much flavor so this way I can control it better I don’t know how much you can see from there those handles are hot I’ll show you a little bit closer as you can see there’s some
Liquid left and there’s a lot of steam coming out so that’s all the liquid rendering now I’m ready to add my broccoli I could have put the broccoli at the same time needs less time to cook so I’m putting it now sort of like to put everything progressively it’s like
Layers it creates almost layers of flavor it sounds ridiculous you know why because when everything is cooked together particularly in a soup there are no layers right maybe it’s all in my head yet I know that it’s going to be very good this way so I do it that way and it
Doesn’t matter cuz this is the way I do it and that’s the way I’m showing you so voila we’re going to cook this for about 5 minutes it’s been about 5 minutes the flavors are starting to really develop here and it’s getting softer there is still a fair amount of
Steam that is coming up as you can see now it is time to add the spices so first the harisa the harisa is a mix I forget what it is it’s a mix of paprika cumin garlic Cayenne coriander carway and a little cinnamon this is a
Little spicy I’m not going to put too much it’s like about 3/4 of a teaspoon I can always add more labor and then the rasal hanut it’s a similar sort of mix but it has many more spices this has a much stronger cinnamon profile I’ll put a little bit more of
This there we go I am mixing it and that is drying the vegetables but it’s also cooking them and they get more flavor like when you cook Indian food and there’s a lot of spices one of the key to Indian food is to actually cook the spices on their own
So that the flavors really develop so this is dry if I were to leave it here for too long then it would start burning so at this point now I’m going to add my tomatoes tomatoes are going to add some moisture to it I am cooking them for
Another five minutes or so I am going to lower my temperature on the stove because I can hear it it’s going a little too fast we engage all the senses when we cook we engage obviously the nose the eyes are engaged and there is also the hearing we listen to the sound of
Food because the sound of food tells us a lot and so whenever we cook something there is a sound that is drier rounder depending of how much moisture there is in the food so in this instance now that I added the tomatoes it’s softer it’s a
Softer sound now also I have l the heat which actually I may have lowered too much kick it up a little bit my soup has come to a boil it’s starting to thicken slightly the lentil are not cooked yet it’s going to need at least another 20
To 30 minutes so now that it has come to a boil I’m going to turn my fire down and let it cook gently until everything is cooked at that point I’ll just see what the thickness is I’ll either add more stock well actually I don’t have anymore I’ll add some water
And that’s when I will add the spinach and finally the OD choke I’m going to wait at the very end to adjust the thickness I need to check to see it is ready everything is CED cooked you can see it has gotten thicker and it actually will keep getting thicker as it
Sits and that’s what I want I want to again control the thickness by making it thicker than it needs to be and then adding liquid as I need it I’m ready now to add the spinach again as you can see there’s a lot of spinach always want to
Pack in as many vegetables as possible so this will only cook for a few minutes as I said before just to wilt it and so God health I mentioned the importance of having a diversity of plant food I talked about two things one was the diversity two was to have as
Many plant foods that are good prebiotics for our probiotics the probiotics are the living bacterias the living microorganism that are in our gut and in other parts but we’re focusing on the gut now in order to survive they feed on Prebiotic and what are prebiotics were primarily fiber
And resistant starches are another one there are some vegetables some plant foods that are richer in prebiotics than others the dark liy grains are one vegetables like leaks mushroom Ary chokes excellent prebiotics so you always want to think about this when you are preparing food at least if you’re
Interested in having an optimally healthy gut as I do it’s always in the back of my mind how can I make this as nutritious as possible as gut friendly as possible and as delicious as possible I’m going to taste the soup we are in the final
Stages oh it’s actually hot so I’m going to taste this it’s sort of weird because you don’t see my face you only see my belly wow it’s really good spice wise it’s good it needs a little bit of salt could use a little more spices but
Again if I do that I have to to keep in mind that this is going to sit and as it sits everything is going to get stronger so I don’t want to have it overwhelming flavorful that then it becomes too strong so we’re ready I’m turning the
Heat off adding my ory chokes and VOA this is ready this smells like when I was growing up and now you going see my face not that’s that interesting in any event I hope that you enjoyed this video I hope that it inspired you to cook thank you
Again for watching this video please write a comment let me know what you think good bad and ugly is all good I welcome every comments because I want to make this helpful entertaining as possible good night it’s good night because at night that I make it I’ll see
You next time in the meantime be well bye