We selected our best soup recipes for you. Some are familiar, some are truly exotic, and all are delicious. Bonus for soup-eaters:  big health benefits. These soup recipes call for plenty of fresh vegetables and grains and are packed with vitamins and minerals you need to stave off winter ailments.

So bundle up to go outdoors, but when you’re home, sit down in front of, lets’ say, a fragrant, creamy, roasted garlic soup. 

Fennel bulbs are in season now – at least, here in the Middle East. Providing you can get some, try this beautiful fennel soup from the Soup For Syria Cookbook by Barbara Abdeni Massaad. The recipe was developed by chef Greg Malouf.

White beans and loads of fresh, seasonal vegetables make a hearty soup to take the chill off winter days. Cook up our cannellini soup. You can either soak dry beans overnight ahead of time, or use canned beans. 

Turkish lentil and chickpea soup with bulgur dumplings. Sound good? Sounds mouthwatering to me. It’s a soup that takes dedication, with a longish list of ingredients, and dumplings to shape by hand. A soup for serious cooks and serious soup eaters.

Among your pantry staples there are probably lentils. This rustic soup from Lebanon offers a satisfying bowl of lentils cooked down with vegetables and rice. Good for body and soul. Lebanese lentil soup.

Have you ever considered eggplant a soup ingredient? We have a whole soup based on eggplant.  Cooked with mushrooms, swirled with pesto and sour cream, creamy eggplant soup is a surprise and a pleasure. 

Chickpea and spinach soup appears on winter menus often, in the Middle East. I have a particular fondness for this Moroccan version of it. 

Soup for breakfast? Why not? Moroccan cuisine developed a luscious,  sweet wheat soup perfumed with orange flower water and cinnamon. Start your day with a bowlful, and you’ll have steady energy at least until lunchtime, and probably past. Herbel, Sweet Moroccan Wheat Soup.

You know, of course, that Jerusalem artichokes aren’t artichokes and have nothing to do with Jerusalem. Unless you bought some in a Jerusalem greengrocer’s to make this soup. Savory with saffron and thickened with almonds, it’s simple to make. And it satisfies your taste for the mildly exotic. Jerusalem artichoke soup.

What’s vichyssoise doing here? Well, it’s a soup traditionally served cold, but we say it’s no sin to eat vichyssoise hot off the stove. We do it. And like it, a lot.

We showed you bulgur dumplings from Turkey. We showed you soups brimming with chickpeas, croutons, and spinach. But we haven’t shown you the ultimate soup accompaniment: matzah balls.  Famous for pairing with chicken soup, you can serve matzah balls in vegetarian broth or clear soup of any kind. So here you are, our traditional matzah ball recipe.

The post 10 winter soups appeared first on Green Prophet.

Soup for Syria is a beautiful new cookbook of delicious and easy-to-make recipes guaranteed to fill your belly and feed your mind with heightened humanitarian awareness. But at its heart it is a cookbook, a perfect primer for any cook seeking healthy and flavorful food made with no-fuss ingredients (mostly vegetarian) found in supermarkets everywhere.

Lebanese food writer Barbara Abdeni Massaad (pictured below) volunteered at a Syrian refugee camp near the Bekaa Valley, one of many that sprouted in Lebanon, doing what came naturally to her: she cooked soup. She hauled in ingredients and tools on her frequent trips to the camp, serving up warm food to families in desperate need of sustenance and support. The experience stirred up her thinking on how to take it larger.

Massaad reached out to the star chefs and foodies in her Rolodex, asking each to create a soup recipe for a cookbook to raise funds for refugee food aid. The project went global, with dozens of cooks around the world clamoring to be included. Others volunteered resources to make the book a reality; publisher Pavilion Books and several bookshops covered production and distribution costs so that most of the profits could be given directly to food relief efforts managed by UNHCR.

Said contributor Anthony Bourdain, “Soup is elemental, and it always makes sense, even when the world around us fails to.” Other participants include Yotam Ottolenghi, Sami Tamimi, Mark Bittman, Alice Waters, Paula Wolfert, Claudia Roden, Sally Butcher, Ana Sortun, Greg Malouf, Aglaia Kremenzi, Joe Barza, Carolyn Kumpe, Wendy Rahamut, and many others. This is one instance where too many cooks didn’t spoil the soup!

Writer disclaimer: Gift-giving is problematic for a Western ex-pat living in the Levant who seeks crowd-pleasing presents that support local causes. Purchases are further constrained by a dearth of handmade products that meet airline luggage limits. So pottery, mosaics and carpets get knocked off the shopping list.

When I first spotted this cookbook, I pre-ordered several copies for US delivery to the foodies on my list. I also bought one for myself, and since returning home to Amman, Jordan I’ve been tearing through the recipes. The ingredients are fairly universal and easy to find and the recipes varied enough to keep my family with spoons at the ready.  My personal favorite (so far) is a brilliantly pink beet-based soup that nearly qualifies as dessert.

Greg Malouf, a Michelin-starred Australian chef with Lebanese roots, contributed this fennel soup recipe, which is next on my list to boil up:

Greg Malouf fennel soup

(Serves 6-8)

60 ml extra-virgin olive oil
2 onions, sliced
2 small garlic cloves, roughly chopped
2 leeks, trimmed and roughly chopped
3 large fennel bulbs, sliced
2 potatoes, peeled and diced
1.5 l chicken stock
1 cinnamon stick
Peel of ½ lemon
½ tsp ground allspice
2 bay leaves
Salt and black pepper, to taste
2 egg yolks
120 ml double cream
Juice of 2 lemons
1 tsp ground cinnamon and 3 tbsp fresh parsley, to garnish

Heat the oil and saute the onions, garlic, leeks and fennel for a few minutes. Add the potatoes, stock, cinnamon stick, lemon peel, allspice and bay leaves. Bring to the boil, then gently simmer for 20 minutes. Remove the cinnamon, lemon and bay, and season. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks and cream, then stir in a large spoonful of soup. Whisk well, then tip into the soup. Slowly return the soup to just below boiling, stirring. Remove from the heat and adjust the seasoning with salt, pepper and lemon juice. Drizzle each bowl with oil and sprinkle with cinnamon and parsley.

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“Soup is the ultimate comfort food: nurturing, sustaining and all good things. One recipe is a drop in the ocean, but if awareness of the plight of the Syrian refugees is raised with each batch made and shared then that is a force for good. As well as being a delicious meal in and of itself,” wrote Israeli chef Yotam Ottolenghi and Palestinian chef Sami Tamimi, frequent collaborators on London-based food projects and contributors to this cookbook.

Here in Amman, local friends have hosted “Souper Bowl Sundays”, inviting hungry people over to sample these recipes and make voluntary donations, which are then passed to local NGOs for refugee food relief. You could do the same for any cause of your choosing, or as a simple excuse to eat well with friends and family.

Buy Soup for Syria at Amazon, or through your favorite bookseller (about $30)

All images from Soup for Syria and Barbara Abdeni Massaad

The post Soup for Syria: feed your belly and your soul appeared first on Green Prophet.

This popular Egyptian soup made with minced Jute leaves is nutritious and delicious over rice and chicken (or tofu!)

Whatever faith and holiday you celebrate, there is no better way to enjoy them all than be eating some classic Egyptian food delicacies, some of which have been popular since the time of the Pharaohs.

One of the most popular is a vegetable and meat soup known as molokhia or mulukhiyah; a dish so popular that many Egyptians consider it to be one of their country’s national dishes. Another name for the leaves is jute. You can grow them indoors in a hydroponic garden year round, or sew some seeds in your garden in spring.

Mulukhiyah is made from the leaves of a leafy plant that bears the same name and is usually found only in parts of the Middle East. Not available in most supermarkets or even in many open air markets, molucheya leaves have to be sought after, and then prepared while the leaves are still fresh.

One of the best recipes I know comes from my own mother-in-law, who is originally from Alexandria and spent many years living in Cairo. The preparation of molucheya soup is a cherished family tradition that is lovingly passed down from mother to daughter.

To prepare mulukhiyah soup:

1.   Grind about 1/2 kg of molokhia leaves in either a food processor or hand grinder until the leaves almost resemble a green paste.

2.   Fry 4 or 5 large garlic “teeth” in olive oil, and add about a tablespoon of  chopped coriander, known to locals as “cusbara”.

3.  Have either a meat or chicken stock ready to use to mix the molucheya paste and other ingredients in.

4.  Add veggie, beef or chicken soup stock with the other ingredients and add pieces of either boiled meat or chicken (or tofu!), and cook all the ingredients together in a pot on a low fire for 10 to 15 minutes. You can add other spices like black pepper, cumin, and salt to taste.

Mulukhiyah soup is best served hot with a lot of rice added. It takes a bit getting used to, but once you do, it’s easy to understand why this ancient dish was once a favorite of the Pharaohs.

Mulukhiyah, molokhia, mulukhiyya, malukhiyah, nalita, or Jew’s mallow (Arabic: ملوخية‎) is the leaves of jute and related Corchorusspecies used as a vegetable in Middle Eastern, East African, North African, and South Asian cuisine.

BONUS desert!

More Middle Eastern food ideas:

Za’tar Pesto Recipe  from Israel’s Premiere Slow Food Chef

Silky White Malabi, Middle Eastern Milk Pudding

Taking on the Middle East: Baba Ganoush Classic Eggplant Recipe

The post Make authentic Egyptian molokhia, soup of the enlightened appeared first on Green Prophet.