Lamb Meatball and Semolina Dumpling Soup With Collard Greens
- Total Time
- 50 minutes
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
Yield:4 to 6 servings
- 10ounces ground lamb
- ⅓cup/30 grams fresh bread crumbs (see Tip)
- ¼cup coarsely grated onion
- Scant ¼ cup finely chopped fresh parsley
- 1½teaspoons ground allspice
- 1teaspoon ground cumin
- ¾teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1tablespoon olive oil, plus more for greasing your hands
- 1small onion, peeled and roughly chopped
- 5garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped
- 2jalapeños, halved, seeded and roughly chopped
- ¼cup olive oil
- 6tablespoons/90 grams tomato paste
- ½cup finely chopped fresh cilantro, plus more for garnish
- 1½teaspoons ground cumin
- 1½teaspoons ground coriander
- ½teaspoon ground turmeric
- 1small (10-ounce) bunch collard greens, stems removed, leaves finely shredded
- 1tablespoon fine semolina
- ¾teaspoon granulated sugar
- 1quart store-bought or homemade chicken stock
- Fine sea salt and black pepper
- ¼cup fresh lemon juice
- ¼cup buttermilk, plus ¼ cup for serving
- 3tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- 1large egg
- ½teaspoon baking powder
- Fine sea salt and black pepper
- ½cup/50 grams fresh bread crumbs (see Tip)
- ½cup fine semolina
For the Lamb Meatballs
For the Broth
For the Semolina Dumplings
Preparation
- Step 1
Make the meatballs: Add all the ingredients minus the oil to a medium bowl and use your hands to knead the mixture thoroughly. Use lightly oiled hands to roll into 18 small balls and place on a plate.
- Step 2
Heat the 1 tablespoon of oil in a large nonstick pan over medium-high. Once very hot, add the meatballs and cook for 3 to 4 minutes, turning as necessary, until nicely browned but not cooked through. Transfer the meatballs and any juices collected to a large, shallow bowl and set aside until needed.
- Step 3
Make the broth: Add the onion, garlic and jalapeños to a food processor and blitz into a rough paste. Add the oil to a deep, medium lidded saucepan and place it over medium-high heat. Once hot, add the onion mixture and cook for 6 minutes, stirring occasionally, until softened and browned. Add the tomato paste, cilantro, cumin, coriander and turmeric and cook for 1½ to 2 minutes, stirring often, until deeply red. Add the collard greens in big handfuls, stirring with each addition, until slightly wilted. Stir in the semolina and sugar, then the stock, 1 cup water, 1½ teaspoons salt and a good grind of pepper; bring to a boil over high. Turn the heat down to medium and leave to simmer for 15 minutes.
- Step 4
While the broth simmers, make the dumplings: In a large bowl, whisk the buttermilk, butter, egg, baking powder, ½ teaspoon salt and a good grind of pepper just until combined. Add the bread crumbs and semolina and mix until just combined; don’t overwork it. Set aside for 5 minutes to firm up slightly, then use your hands to shape the mixture into 18 small balls. Make sure they’re nice and compact as you shape them.
- Step 5
Turn the heat on the broth down to medium-low and stir in the meatballs. Next, gently lower in the dumplings one by one, without stirring. Cover the pot and leave to cook for 10 minutes, until the dumplings have puffed up and are cooked through. Remove the lid and gently stir in the lemon juice.
- Step 6
Divide the soup among 4 bowls then drizzle with the extra buttermilk, sprinkle with additional cilantro and serve warm.
Tip
- To make fresh bread crumbs, slice the crusts off standard white sandwich bread. Cut the crustless bread into pieces, then blitz in a food processor into fine crumbs.
Private Notes
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Cooking Notes
Kate
Cream of Wheat isn't semolina. Semolina's made from durum wheat, a particularly hard type of wheat. Cream of Wheat is made from other wheats. You can buy semolina ground to different consistencies, but this recipe seems to want a fine grind, like you would use to make semolina pasta. It's often available in grocery stores from a number of companies, such as Bob's Red Mill, or you can buy it online. I get mine from Janie's Mill when I order other flours.
BDW
This was fantastic, made exactly as written. Complex, comfort-food, delicious. Definitely 5-star, definitely going on the rotation here. Only nitpick I have is that step 3 should have been broken into multiple steps. I found myself almost missing bits as I moved through it and having to go back and carefully read sentence-by-sentence. Had it been written as 3-4 distinct steps it would have been easier to follow.
Eileen
If you have access to an Asian market, semolina is called sooji or rava.
ASO
Substituted cooked mayocoba beans (Rancho Gordo- like cannellini) for the semolina dumpling part. That cut off 30 minutes of time, making it a super quick and delicious meal.
Steve
One does not need to pick the cilantro leaves off the stems. The stems are flavorful. Just chop the leaves on the stems.
Barbara
Substituted Chard for Collards but Collards would have stood up to the textures and flavors better. Otherwise, I made the soup exactly as written and it was excellent - a serious soup for a cold winter night.
GreenLight
I messed up the dumplings. Used a cookie scoop and I don’t know if it was just because they were too big (I only got around 9) or if they weren’t compacted enough, or possibly it’s because I used multigrain bread, but they mostly fell apart even with extra simmer time. Still incredibly delicious. Whole fam loved it, even the collard averse teen. Will def make again.
Laura
This is an amazing recipe — we devoured it. Some suggestions — leave the seeds in the jalapeños, the heat goes well with the heavy lemon addition at the end. Add a splash of fish sauce into the broth with the tomato paste step. Make the dumpling dough before you do anything else. Leave it covered in the refrigerator while you prepare the soup to the step where the dumplings go in. The dumplings are delicate and I think giving them time to set up helps them stick together.
Louis H
Followed the recipe almost exactly (used 12 ounces of lamb), it was very delicious and looked just like the picture; fed 4 at my house. My market only had large jalapenos and I used the 2 called for, which was an error and unbalanced the flavor profile of the dish. The recipe should say 2 small or medium jalapenos or 1 large. My group felt the amount of lemon juice added at the end should be cut in half; the called for 1/4 cup was too much citrus brightness for the deeper flavors of the dish.
GreenLight
Sharing my tips for streamlining as this has become a family favorite and a soup I absolutely crave, and we do get it on the table in under an hour 1) prep all the vegetables in two bowls first (meatball and soup base) saving only collards to prep while cooking — saves time and stress as the recipe moves faster than you think and there are lots of overlapping ingredients, 2) brown the meatballs in the soup pot then let the soup base deglaze, 3) skip the dumplings, serve w crusty bread.
M
Love this! I made this last year and again yesterday. It's wonderful but time-consuming (unless you enlist a second pair of hands). Making the meatballs a day or two ahead helps.
Sam
I faked buttermilk with a mix of Greek yogurt thinned with half and half. Yum. I had leftovers - had to add water but the dumplings held up great. A little less delicate on day two but they absorbed more flavor! Yes, this involves too many dishes and is a little bit of work. But would be fun and not too bad at all with two people - one on dumplings, one on meatballs. I was able to do alone more or less in the specified time, but I was working nonstop.
Sam
This takes a lot of pots, pans, prep and clean-up. It's delicious but perhaps best for a night that you have about 2 hours to dedicate.
KarenR
I forgot to put the egg into the dumpling mixture! ergo the dumplings disintegrated. nevertheless, it is so delicious. a friend showed up by surprise a half an hour after I made it, while eating he exclaimed: "this is like an orgasm in my mouth" another excellent Ottolenghi recipe.
Laura
This is an amazing recipe — we devoured it. Some suggestions — leave the seeds in the jalapeños, the heat goes well with the heavy lemon addition at the end. Add a splash of fish sauce into the broth with the tomato paste step. Make the dumpling dough before you do anything else. Leave it covered in the refrigerator while you prepare the soup to the step where the dumplings go in. The dumplings are delicate and I think giving them time to set up helps them stick together.
Joan J.
Absolutely delicious! I didn’t have fresh cilantro, so left it out and decided that I’ll be making this recipe on repeat.
Laurel
First of all, this is 5-star tasty. Saying that, though, I'm not sure it's worth all the effort. The 50 minute preparation time is laughable--I know the first time you make something takes longer, but three separate components with a total of 30 ingredients...it probably takes close to 50 minutes just to get the ingredients gathered and sorted! And you have to clean up as you go because of all the mess from grating, chopping, frying, and meatball- and dumpling-making before you get to the soup.
T rex
used 1lb grnd lamb. added extra water to the broth
Barbara
Recipe is delicious but is too time consuming with prep, all those steps, & dirties way too many dishes & pots. Forget using crustless white bread (any bread is fine), use frozen chopped kale, and I'm going to make as a stew with ground lamb in broth (no lamb balls) but will make those yummy light semolina dumplings. One pot and all the flavor.
Lee Ann
Such bright flavor, and the dumplings and lamb are delicious. I did this over 2 days, mixing meat mixture and jalapeño mixture us prep evening before, then broth and rest of steps the next day. A lot of ingredients but worth it.
Emily in Texas
Made as directed and loved it for something different but satisfying on a cold night. I lightly floured my hands to aide in a tighter roll of the dumplings and mine stayed perfectly shaped and in tact when cooked.
Suzanne
Delicious. I’ll definitely make again. I followed others’ advice and made the meatballs the night before. I also used a Dutch oven to brown the meatballs and then the same pan to cook the broth. I think it probably deepened all of the flavors. I also prepped all ingredients so when I started cooking, it was stress free. The only change I will make next time is to make the meatballs truly bite size. Mine were a little too big to be one bite. The dumplings were so good and tender.
Suzanne
Can this soup be frozen after cooking?
Wendy
The meatballs were outstanding! The dumplings not so great, tasted fine but quickly fell apart. I’m going to use the meatballs in a red lentil soup, because they’re too good to not find another place for them.
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