Harira recipe

Harira (Moroccan stew with chicken, chickpeas, lentils and rice) | pamela salzman

Harira is a Moroccan stew that is traditionally served during Ramadan to break the daily fast.  In my house it is a nourishing one-pot meal that is perfect for a chilly winter evening.  I have seen many versions of recipes for Harira.  Typical ingredients include lentils, chickpeas, rice or vermicelli pasta, tomatoes, onions, fresh herbs, spices and a small amount of meat, such as lamb or beef.  I have come up with my own version that is heavier on the grains and legumes with a few handfuls of greens thrown in at the end.  This is my kind of food!

One thing I love about Harira is that it’s rich in health-supportive spices.  In our country, we tend to shy away from spices like turmeric and ginger which is such a shame, because not only are they delicious, they are incredibly healing, too.  These spices and the others used in this Harira are full of phytonutrients, as well as anti-inflammatory  and cancer-preventative compounds.  Turmeric, in particular, has been hailed as the rock-star spice of late.  You may have eaten turmeric before if you’ve had curry.  It is what gives curry powder its yellow color.  Turmeric is a very powerful liver detoxifier, it improves circulation, is anti-bacterial and to repeat myself — one of the most potent anti-inflammatory substances out there.

I have heard from some parents that they are reluctant to try new flavors at the dinner table, for fear that their kids won’t like them.  The best way I have found to introduce new spices is gradually, by adding a little here and there to foods that are already in their comfort zone, such as pasta sauce or stew.   You will be giving your family such a gift by opening them up to a whole other world of flavors and healthful foods.

For the vegetarians and vegans out there, don’t pass this recipe by.  Just use water or vegetable stock for the chicken stock and double the chickpeas.  It’s already gluten-free, in case you were wondering.  This recipe makes enough for the 5 of us for dinner, but I double it quite often to get a lunch for the girls the next day.  Whatever doesn’t get eaten will freeze beautifully.  That wedge of lemon is recommended per person to squeeze on top, and before you think it’s something you can do without, think again!  The lemon really brightens the dish and adds the perfect complement to all the earthy flavors.

Harira (Moroccan stew with chicken, chickpeas, lentils and rice) | pamela salzman

harira (Moroccan stew with chicken, chickpeas, lentils and rice) | pamela salzman

 

bowl of Harira, ready to be eaten

Harira

Pamela
Harira is a Moroccan stew that is traditionally served during Ramadan to break the daily fast. In my house it is a nourishing one-pot meal that is perfect for a chilly winter evening.
5 from 3 votes
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Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour 30 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 45 minutes
Course Appetizer, Main Course
Cuisine Moroccan
Servings 5 -6

Ingredients
  

  • 2 Tablespoons unrefined coconut or olive oil I use coconut
  • 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast or thighs (or a combination of both), cut into 1-inch pieces
  • 1 onion chopped
  • 1 stalk celery chopped
  • 1 carrot chopped
  • 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 4-5 grinds of black pepper
  • 1 pound fresh tomatoes peeled, seeded and chopped OR 1 14.5 ounce can of diced tomatoes with the juice (I used 1/2 box of Pomi since I'm not a fan of canned tomatoes)
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt
  • 1 cup cooked chickpeas
  • 3 cups chicken stock or vegetable stock preferably homemade
  • 1/2 cup dried lentils
  • 1/4 cup long-grain brown rice
  • 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves
  • 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
  • A couple handfuls of fresh baby spinach leaves optional, but leafy greens are your friend
  • 1 lemon cut into wedges

Instructions
 

  • Season the chicken with sea salt and pepper as early as possible.
  • Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the chicken pieces in 2 batches and brown on both sides. Remove the chicken from the pot and set aside.
  • Add the onion, celery and carrot and cook until softened. Add all the spices and cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly to prevent scorching. Add the tomatoes with their juice, chickpeas and 1 1/2 teaspoons of sea salt. Cook until fragrant.
  • Return the chicken to the pot with any accumulated juices. Add the stock, lentils and brown rice and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered for 50 minutes.
  • Add cilantro and parsley and cook uncovered for 5 minutes or until the chickpeas are heated through. Stir in the spinach leaves, if using. Ladle into individual bowls and serve with a wedge of lemon.
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Lemon-thyme chicken recipe

lemon-thyme chicken | pamela salzman

Once upon a time, I used to enjoy spending lots of time experimenting in the kitchen.  I had fabulous cookbooks in which I found interesting and challenging recipes to make for dinner.  On a weekday.  And then it was over.  My kids started playing team sports.  Do you know this new life?  Are you driving to some field at exactly the same time you should be soaking and sauteeing or poaching and shredding?  And then back an hour later to pick-up, unless of course there’s a GAME.  Then you’re sitting on bleachers for two hours trying to figure out how dinner will be ready the second you walk in the door with starving children.

how to slice into cutlets

“Baked Lemon Chicken” from The Union Square Cafe Cookbook was one of my favorite chicken entrees before sports.  Bone-in chicken pieces baked with lots of sauteed onions, lemon and thyme.  It was even good enough to serve to company.  But there would be no more basting every 15 minutes for me on a Tuesday at 5:00.  So what’s a girl to do?  Adjust the recipe to cutlets, of course!

sliced onions and garlic, fresh thyme

Even though I generally prefer bone-in chicken to boneless, this dish is not lacking for flavor or moistness.  The onions get soft and saucy with lemon and infused with fresh thyme and the chicken takes it all in.  The best part about this is that it’s super easy and can be done in stages, if necessary.  You can flour and saute the chicken and then take the kids to practice.  Come back and saute the onions, add the thyme, lemon and stock.  Pick up the kids from practice and when you get home add the chicken to the onions and let everything cook together while you saute some spinach with garlic.  Hopefully you made a vinaigrette and washed some lettuce a few days ago, so assembling a salad will take you no time at all.  Can you say, “Home run!”

lemon- thyme chicken | pamela salzman

 

lemon-thyme chicken | pamela salzman

 

Lemon-Thyme Chicken

Pamela
The perfect recipe for those busy weeknights - this recipe is quick and easy, and you can even prep ahead!
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Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 40 minutes
Course Main Course
Cuisine American
Servings 6

Ingredients
  

  • 2 pounds chicken cutlets I show a photo of how I cut a boneless, skinless breast half into cutlets, but you can ask your butcher to do this
  • Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • Flour for dredging whole wheat pastry flour or brown rice flour (gluten-free are the two I use)
  • Unrefined cold-pressed extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 large onion halved and sliced thinly (I use a candle when I am cutting onions to prevent crying -- it works!)
  • 4 cloves garlic sliced thinly
  • ½ cup fresh lemon juice
  • 1 cup chicken stock
  • a few sprigs of fresh thyme

Instructions
 

  • Season the chicken cutlets on both sides with sea salt and black pepper. Dredge them with flour and shake off the excess.
  • Warm about ¼ cup olive oil over medium heat in a large skillet. Add the chicken cutlets and sauté on both sides until golden brown. Transfer the chicken to a plate.
  • Add the onions and garlic to the skillet and season with sea salt and pepper. Sauté until tender, about 8 minutes. Pour the lemon juice into the pan and scrape any brown bits on the bottom. Add the chicken stock and thyme sprigs and bring to a simmer. Transfer the chicken back to the pan with any accumulated juices. Simmer until cooked through, about 5 minutes.
  • Remove thyme sprigs and serve immediately.
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Turkey sausages with cabbage and fennel recipe

People ask me all the time for more recipes that are Fast!  No, faster!  And easy!  I understand the challenges that people face when pulling together a weeknight meal, whether they are parents or not.  However, we need to put some time into our cooking.  I haven’t figured out yet how to make something in no time that’s worth eating.  But this sausage and vegetable dish is my idea of fast food.

I buy precooked sausages from Applegate Farms, which don’t contain spooky ingredients like nitrates or nitrites (hooray, no carcinogens!).  Slice up some cabbage and fennel and you’ve got yourself a quick and easy dinner.  Make extra and toss it with pasta the next day, just save some of the pasta cooking water after you drain it if you need to moisten the sausage dish up.  If you have a favorite sausage that is not precooked, I would slice it or remove the meat from the casing and sauté that first.  Remove it from the pan, sauté your vegetables and put the sausage back in.

If you haven’t cooked with fennel before, it has a fresh, licorice undertone and perfectly complements the fennel seed that is usually present in most sausages.   I use red cabbage here for color, for the extra phytonutrients that come with it and the higher C profile than green, but you can certainly use green cabbage if that’s what you have handy.  Cabbage is part of the cruciferous family of vegetables – a group that I encourage you to incorporate regularly into your diet.  These include all the cabbages and kale, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and bok choy.  These vegetables contain some potent anti-cancer compounds called sulphurophanes.  Cabbage also contains some cholesterol-lowering benefits as well as loads of antioxidants and anti-inflammatory nutrients.  It is also relatively inexpensive, to boot.  What are you, in love with cabbage or something? Well, maybe I am!

bowl of turkey sausages sliced with purple cabbage and fennel

Turkey Sausages with Cabbage and Fennel Recipe

Pamela Salzman
An easy and quick weekly meal - the perfect dinner to throw into your weekly rotation, packed with protein and vegetables!
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Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 35 minutes
Course Main Course
Cuisine American
Servings 6

Ingredients
  

  • 2 Tablespoons unrefined cold-pressed extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 Tablespoon fennel seeds optional
  • 1 large onion halved and sliced thinly
  • ½ red or green cabbage sliced thinly
  • 2 fennel bulbs tops removed and bulbs sliced thinly
  • Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 8 nitrate-free pre-cooked sausages, sliced on the diagonal as small or large as you prefer. I cut each link into 4 or 5 slices.
  • 1/3 cup dry white wine

Instructions
 

  • Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the fennel seeds and stir until fragrant, about 3 minutes.
  • Add onion, cabbage and fennel. Season with sea salt and pepper and sauté until just tender.
  • Add sausages and cook until heated through.
  • Add white wine to deglaze the pan. Cook until wine evaporates. Taste for seasoning and serve immediately.
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Onion-braised grass-fed beef brisket recipe

 

grass-fed braised beef brisket|pamela salzman

Let me come right out and say that I don’t like to promote the consumption of too much beef for several reasons.  In our house we eat beef about three times per month, and when I make it I plan for about 3-4 ounces per person.   Furthermore, I only purchase GRASS-FED beef.  Call me old-fashioned, but I am a firm believer that if you are going to eat animal protein, then it should be an animal that was raised in a natural environment with a diet that is also native to that species.  With respect to cows, that means cows that graze in pastures eating GRASS.  There is plenty of research supporting the notion that grass-fed beef – compared to its confined feedlot counterpart – is lower in fat and contains cancer preventive, fat-burning properties.  Grass-fed beef also contains higher amounts of Omega-3 fats and is generally raised without the use of antibiotics and hormones.  It is almost like making a choice between eating a fit and happy animal which has eaten a health food diet, and eating a stressed out, overweight animal which was fed fast food its whole life.  If you need more convincing, please read Michael Pollan’s fantastic book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma.

There’s also the heavy environmental impact of raising cattle, which is less severe with grass-fed beef, but still a discouraging consideration.  That said …

Beef is a very warming food, more appropriate for the colder months, and it becomes even more warming when cooked with onions.  Brisket is a very tough cut that needs long, slow braising to help tenderize it.  If you like your brisket so soft that you don’t need a knife to cut it, this recipe will not disappoint.  The meat shreds easily and melts in your mouth.  Best of all, the house will be filled with a wonderful, warm aroma.  But do plan ahead since cooking this the day before helps to develop the mélange of flavors.  Really, the only way you can screw this up is by letting it dry out.  Lastly, be aware that brisket shrinks tremendously once it has cooked.  A 6-pound brisket fed a class of 12 women with enough for two of my kiddies to enjoy it as an after-school snack.

Onion-Braised Grass-Fed Beef Brisket Recipe

Pamela, adapted from Gourmet
A great dinner to serve in the cold months when you need a break from soups! Hearty, healthy, and filling.
4.50 from 4 votes
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Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 4 hours 30 minutes
Total Time 4 hours 40 minutes
Course Main Course
Cuisine American
Servings 8 -12

Ingredients
  

  • 1 5- to-6-pound grass-fed beef brisket preferably first cut
  • 3 Tablespoons olive oil
  • ¾ teaspoon sea salt plus more for seasoning
  • ¾ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper plus more for seasoning
  • 3 large yellow onions peeled and cut into ½-inch pieces (about 5 cups or 3 pounds)
  • 2-3 large garlic cloves minced
  • 1 teaspoon paprika
  • 3 medium tomatoes if in season, peeled, seeded and coarsely chopped (optional)
  • 2 cups water
  • 1 cup red wine or use all water

Instructions
 

  • Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  • In a dutch oven or other heavy baking pan large enough to hold brisket, heat 1 tablespoon oil in oven 10 minutes. Pat brisket dry and season well with salt (I used about 4 teaspoons) and pepper on the top and bottom. Roast brisket in pan, uncovered, 30 minutes.
  • While brisket is roasting, in a large heavy skillet cook onions in remaining 2 tablespoons oil over moderately high heat, stirring, until softened and beginning to turn golden. Reduce heat to moderate and cook onions, stirring occasionally and reducing heat if necessary, until deep golden, about 20 minutes more. Stir in garlic, paprika, salt, and pepper and cook 1 minute. Stir in water and wine and bring to a boil. Spoon onion mixture and chopped tomatoes over brisket and bake, tightly covered, 3 ½ hours, or until brisket is tender. (Check pan every hour and if necessary, add more water.) Remove brisket from oven and let cool in onion mixture 1 hour.
  • Remove brisket from pan, scraping onion mixture back into pan, and chill, wrapped in foil, overnight. Spoon onion mixture into a 1-quart measure and chill, covered, overnight.
  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Discard fat from onion mixture and transfer to a blender. Add enough water to the blender to measure 3 cups total. Blend until smooth.
  • Slice the brisket against the grain as thick or thin as you prefer. In a large ovenproof skillet heat gravy until hot, add brisket and heat in oven 30 minutes. Or you can continue to heat on the stove, covered until heated through.
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