Tashreeb (Iraqi Chicken Broth over Bread with Dried Lime)
تشریب (عراق کا روٹی پر ڈالا مرغی کا شوربہ، سوکھے لیموں کے ساتھ)
Tashreeb is Iraqi comfort food: a golden, tangy broth of chicken (or lamb) and chickpeas, flavoured with (*noomi basra*), turmeric and warm spices, ladled over pieces of flatbread until they soften and soak it all up. It's eaten during Ramadan and on cold nights, and it's a close cousin of the fatteh family of bread dishes. Pakistani readers will find it like a light chicken salan or paya eaten the traditional way, with bread soaked in the shorba.
- ⏱ Total: 1 hr 15 min
- Prep: 15 min
- Cook: 1 hr
- Easy
- Serves 4
Method
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Heat the oil and cook the onion for 5 minutes. Add the garlic, turmeric, baharat and pepper and stir for 30 seconds. Add the chicken and turn it in the spices for 5 minutes.
Add the tomato paste, dried limes, salt and water. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for 35–40 minutes until the chicken is tender. Add the chickpeas for the last 10 minutes.
Squeeze the dried limes against the side of the pot to release their juice, and taste for salt and sourness.
Put the torn bread in deep bowls, ladle the hot broth over so it soaks in, and top with chicken and chickpeas. Serve at once with pickles and onion.
Kitchen notes
Dried limes give tashreeb its distinctive sour, slightly smoky flavour. They're sold in Arab, Persian and many South Asian shops.
Day-old bread is best; fresh bread turns mushy too quickly. Toasting it lightly helps.
Lamb tashreeb (tashreeb laham) is equally popular; simmer the lamb for 1½ hours.
Iraqi comfort food
Tashreeb is a home dish in Iraq, especially in Baghdad and the south, eaten at iftar during Ramadan, on cold winter evenings and whenever someone needs something comforting. It’s quick, cheap and generous, and it uses up bread that’s a day or two old.
Dried limes
The defining flavour comes from , called noomi basra in Iraq after the southern port city. Limes are boiled in salt water and dried in the sun until they turn hard and dark. Pierced and simmered in the broth, they give a sour, earthy, slightly fermented taste that’s very different from fresh lemon.
The bread
Iraqi samoon, a diamond-shaped bread, or flat khubz is torn into pieces and laid in bowls before the hot broth goes over. The bread softens but holds some texture. Pakistani readers will recognise the habit of eating bread soaked in shorba, as with nihari and paya.
Serving
Serve with pickled turnips, raw onion and fresh herbs. For a meat version, try lamb; for more bread-based dishes, see fatteh and musakhan.
Questions people ask
What can I use instead of dried limes?
Add the zest and juice of a lemon at the end, and a pinch of sumac. It won't be quite the same but will be tangy and bright.
Is tashreeb a soup?
It's between a soup and a stew, eaten with a spoon from bread that has soaked up the broth.
Nutrition (estimate, per serving)
- Calories
- 480
- Protein
- 38 g
- Fat
- 16 g
- Carbs
- 44 g
