Tunisian recipe
How to make Lablabi
لبلابي
All of Tunisia
A garlicky chickpea soup with cumin, poured over torn pieces of stale bread and topped with harissa, olive oil, often a soft-cooked egg, and sometimes tuna, capers and olives. It is cheap, filling and warming.
Ingredients
- 2 x 400 g tins chickpeas, with their liquid
- 4 tablespoons olive oil, plus extra to serve
- 4 cloves garlic, crushed
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin, plus extra to serve
- 1 to 2 teaspoons harissa, to taste
- 1 litre water or vegetable stock
- Juice of 1 lemon, and salt
- About 200 g stale crusty bread, torn into small pieces
- 4 eggs (use pasteurised eggs if serving soft yolks to pregnant women, young children, older people or anyone with a weak immune system)
- To serve: capers, olives, a small tin of tuna (optional)
Method
- Warm the olive oil in a large pot, add the garlic and cook gently for 1 minute without letting it brown. Stir in the cumin and the harissa.
- Add the chickpeas with their liquid and the water or stock. Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes, then season with salt and the lemon juice.
- Crack the eggs into the simmering soup, cover and cook for 3 to 4 minutes, until the whites are firm. For firm yolks, cook for a few minutes longer.
- Put the torn bread in four deep bowls and ladle the hot chickpeas and broth over it, with one egg per bowl.
- Top each bowl with a drizzle of olive oil, a pinch of cumin, extra harissa, and capers, olives or tuna if you like. Break the egg and stir it in as you eat.
Made it at home? Tick it off and it goes into your kitchen passport.
Lablabi was once a winter breakfast, but today it is eaten all day and all year, and in Bizerte people eat it stuffed into a baguette.
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