Serves 4-6
Preparation time: 35 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour

• 15ml butter
• 30ml olive oil
• 1 big onion, coarsely chopped
• 2 celery sticks, finely chopped
• 1 thumb-size piece of fresh ginger,
• finely chopped or grated
• 2,5ml ground cinnamon
• 5ml turmeric
• 5ml paprika
• 500g deboned leg of lamb, cut into
• 1cm cubes
• 100g raw lentils
• 2 tins chickpeas, drained
• 4 large ripe tomatoes, skins peeled,
• chopped (or 1 tin chopped tomatoes)
• pinch of saffron
• salt to taste
• 60ml coriander leaves, chopped
• 125ml Italian parsley, chopped
• juice of a lemon
• 1 egg

1 Heat the butter and olive oil in a saucepan, then sauté the onion and celery until soft and shiny. Stir in the ginger, cinnamon, turmeric and paprika. Stirfry for 5 minutes. then ladle out and keep aside.
2 Fry the meat in the same saucepan over high heat until golden brown. Ladle in the onion mixture, lentils, chickpeas and tomatoes. Add a litre of water and the saffron and bring to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer with the lid on for about an hour or until the meat is tender. Remove the foam that accumulates on the surface with a draining spoon. Don’t add salt before the lentils have softened.
3 Stir in the coriander and parsley. Use a potato masher to mash the chickpeas and lentils against the bottom of the saucepan to soften them a bit more. The soup will become thicker. Taste and season, if necessary. Mix the lemon juice and egg and stir into the soup – don’t let the soup boil. Serve and drizzle with olive oil before eating.
Wine recommendation: This rich, aromatic soup has enough kick and doesn’t require anything stronger

Words and image: Home magazine