Tunisian Leblebi Recipes

Steps:

• Place chickpeas in a large bowl and cover with 2 cups water. Let stand overnight in the refrigerator.
• Drain chickpeas. In a stockpot, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onion and garlic; cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent, 5 minutes. Add chickpeas and 5 cups of water. Cover; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer until chickpeas begin to soften, about 30 minutes.
• Add 1 teaspoon cumin and 1 teaspoon harissa. Cover and simmer until chickpeas are tender, about 45 minutes. Add salt.
• Let stand about 1 hour to cool. Transfer half the soup to a blender; blend to a coarse pur? Repeat with remaining soup. Return to stockpot and reheat.
• Place capers, turnips, eggs, tuna, remaining harissa, scallions, and lemon in a relish tray or in individual bowls. Serve soup with the assorted condiments.

Steps:

• Wash chickpeas and soak overnight (if using dried).
• If desired, rinse them again. In a large soup pot, cover chickpeas with water, bring to a boil, and cook until tender (ten to twenty minutes). - Or start with two pounds of canned chick peas, drained and rinsed, and heated in four cups of water.
• Add garlic, harissa sauce, ground cumin, and salt. Simmer for ten minutes. Immediately before serving: add lemon juice, olive oil, and bread crumbs. Serve hot.

Steps:

• To make the chickpeas, preheat the oven to 115°. Put the soaked prepared chickpeas, stock, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper, and extra water to cover the peas by 1", if necessary, into a heavy lidded pot or casserole pot. Bring to a boil, cover and put in oven for about 3 hours, or until fully cooked and silky. Now, you can keep going, or store the soup in the fridge for a day or two, until you're ready to go. When you are ready you can make it all (serves 8) or a bit now, and more later. If you have refrigerated it, you can easily remove the fat from the top.
• When you are ready to eat, reheat the chickpeas in their liquid, while you prepare the eggs. Fill a bowl with ice water. For each bowl of soup, put one egg in a pan of not quite boiling water. Cover pan and turn off the heat. After 6 minutes, slip the eggs into the ice water to cool. Once they ar cool, peel them carefully, leaving the medium cooked eggs whole. This is a little bit fidlely but worth the effort after coming so far, or a runny boiled/fried egg can do the job too!
• Put some stale bread in the bottom of each bowl, and cover with a portion of chickpeas and their cooking liquid. Set an egg on top of each bowl, and cut it so that the yolk runs. Dribble some harissa sauce over each and sprinkle with cumin and freshly ground pepper. Top with olives, capers, and diced bell pepper. Dribble on a bit of olive oil, and squeeze the lemon wedge over all.
• This is a satisfying, belly-warming, invigorating soup, to cure you if you are both tired and hungry. But don't substitute for those chickpeas!
• Serve with a Sangiovese.

Steps:

• Combine stock, chickpeas, harissa, cumin, and salt in a large pot. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, reduce temperature, and simmer for 15 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.
• Divide bread, chopped parsley, cilantro, and capers between 4 soup bowls. Scoop an egg from the shell into each bowl, pour soup on top, and drizzle with olive oil.