Customers of my cooking classes always tell me they do not need dinner after the lunch we make together. “Hm, they are not exaggerating,” I thought to myself as we could barely walk stuffed to the rim with the delicious Moroccan food we cooked at the Zeynep’s house in Fez. Dinner was out of the question if it was possible at all in the Fez medina presenting edible opportunities at every corner.
All right, maybe just a small dinner. A bowl of soup can do. I remembered how after my morning walk I passed by a tiniest shop with the tall dark wooden doors wide open to let in the line of the men waiting for the bowls of piping hot bessara, Moroccan broad bean soup.
Just like in Turkey older man in the traditional neighborhoods and towns in Morocco prefer to start their day with a hearty fare. And during the month of Ramadan hardly any sahur, pre-dawn breakfast, goes without a soup. While in Turkey people swear by their mercimek or ezogelin, in Morocco the classics are harira, thick tomato and chickpea soup, and the above-mentioned bessara.
When we came in the evening the massive door was closed, and a silent lock told us everything we needed to know: the shop closes as the soupman sells out late afternoon or early evening. Needless to say, the first thing next morning we headed out back to the soup shop.
Eating breakfast at the hotel, however good, throughout all your stay is a crime if you ask me. Tricked by the convenience of a familiar “continental breakfast” or relying on the hotel management’s idea of the morning meal, many travelers never find out what locals eat in the morning, what kind of peculiar places serve breakfast or how you can even go DIY. That’s why after exploring Fez a bit we ditched the hotel breakfast and joined the tradesmen in the medina for a bowl of soup before they open their shops for the day.
Huge open wooden doors revealed the shop that could have been a narrowest gap between the two neighboring establishments. The shop could sit 6 people squeezed around the table; a bar attached to the door could accommodate another 2-3 soup enthusiasts. The largest item in the shop was the biggest caldron you can imagine mounted on the metal frame of the gas burner. And a long baseball bat to stir the cooked soup often. Above the caldron, there was a shelf with piled up soup bowls and another one with stacks of fresh khobz, Moroccan flat bread baked in the communal oven. The shop walls were covered with beautiful floral-patterned tiles adding solemnity to the whole affair. Here the medina tradesmen started their day with a bismillah and a bowl of bessara.
As I expressed an interest the middle-aged man running the shop poured some soup in a small bowl and as-a-matter-of-factly ladled a plenty of olive oil in the bowl too. The rest of the seasoning was left up to the me as each eater seemed to have their own idea of perfection. Cumin, hot paprika and salt were on the table, to be added to taste. And those in the know asked for more olive oil mixed with the minced garlic.
The gentlemen sitting across me ordered his soup without oil and requested a pair of scissors: at the arrival of both he cut off the knot on a small plastic bag holding 2/3 cups olive oil (probably, home-pressed) he brought along with a loaf of bread (probably, prepared by his wife that morning) and emptied its content into a bowl of soup. A tablespoon of cumin, a tablespoon of paprika and a thorough stir turned the soup’s color into the turmericy bright yellow. The man next to me brought his own bread, barley rather than wheat khobz, and seemed to prefer cumin over paprika in his bessara.
Me, I like to add a bit of everything: heat of paprika, earthiness of cumin, light acidity of olive oil and a strike of garlic in the warm thick soup make a perfect combination one would want on a chilly spring morning.
Moroccan Broad Bean Breakfast Soup (Bessara)
The soup is uber-simple to make, but it is the amount of seasoning that separates an ok bessara from the outstanding one: you’d need to be extraordinarily generous with cumin and paprika, add plenty of extra virgin olive oil and a hint of fresh minced garlic before serving the soup, or encourage your eaters to do so.
The consistency of the soup is up to you to decide. In Morocco it’s something in between a creamy soup and a dip; people there often eat it without a spoon dunking khobz, Moroccan flat bread, in the bowl.
Serves 4
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 55 min
Total time: 1 hour
Ingredients
2 cups dry split broad beans (fava)
2 large cloves garlic
4 cups water
1.5 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
For serving:
extra-virgin olive oil
paprika
cumin
minced garlic
Directions
Soak broad beans the night before: In a medium bowl cover the beans with cold water: water should be higher than the beans by two fingers. Let sit overnight. Drain and thoroughly rinse the beans. If using whole (unpeeled) fava beans remove the shells, which will be fairly easy and quick after soaking.
Cook broad beans: Place the beans, whole garlic cloves and 4 cups water in a large pot, bring to a simmer and with a slotted spoon skim all the froth. Cover with a lid leaving a small gap (I place a wooden spoon in the gap so the lid would not slide back to close the pot) and let simmer on the lowest heat possible for 50-60 min, or until the beans become curly and mash easily with a spoon.
Make bessara: Transfer the beans with the cooked garlic and any remaining liquid to the food processor. Add olive oil, cumin and salt. Pure until smooth. You can do without a food processor with a wooden spoon or potato masher right in the cooking pot if you don’t mind a slightly chunkier consistency of bessara. Add more hot water for a thinner soup and serve with (yes, again) a generous glug of olive oil, cumin, paprika and minced garlic (I used fresh garlic shots). Broad bean soup keeps well for 2-3 days, and as anything made of beans thickens overnight.
After seeing your pic of the soup you had in Morocco on Facebook, I was inspired to make it. After all, I do adore all things beany!
I searched for a recipe on the net, and found one fairly similar to the above in terms of ingredients, but the technique was different. The biggest difference was that the cumin and paprika were cooked with the beans (added half-way through, I think). The flavour would have been a lot less bright than in your version. My one big c*-up was buying unskinned broad beans! There were both kind in the shops here, and equally represented, so I thought skinned beans might make nice texture. But the ‘skin’ on these beans was more like shoe leather, even after an hour of cooking! I ended up having to skin them myself… Therapeutic it may be, but thoroughly unnecessary!
I did add cumin, paprika and olive oil to the bowl later, but not in the quantities you said the Moroccan men did. I also had some garlic oil knocking about from the previous night’s pizza making, so I added that. It brightened up the dish. Nevertheless, I was thoroughly underwhelmed. I even thought I might have found one bean I do not care for.
Though I may be just convinced to try it again following the techniques you describe above, and certainly using skinned beans! I think the addition of olive oil and the cumin when pureeing the soup with definitely brighten the dish, and so will the raw garlic.