Assalamu alaykum and hello.
Can anyone tell me the difference between hssoua and chorba? I’m trying to figure out if hssoua is simply a soup with some type of grain, or if it refers to a thick soup.
Also, what is “ilane” as in hssoua ilane?
Thanks - shukran!
Wa3alaykom asalam
Hssoua It’s a moroccan soup, make with semolina, milk, olive oil,…ect, and chorba it’s a vegetable soup, I think it’s a Arab countries soup, as Egypt, Lebanon,…ect, also a few Moroccans make it
otherwise Hassaa It’s a Harira
About Ilane It’s a oil, when they making soup, they stirring it well with a little bit of oil
Shukran…that helps clear it up.
La shukran 3ala wajib(you’re welcome)
Can you tell me again what’s ilane? I don’t get it!
We use in Morocco the word shorba sometimes, like in shorbat l3adas, lentils soup.
Can you tell me again what’s ilane? I don’t get it!
We use in Morocco the word shorba sometimes, like in shorbat l3adas, lentils soup.[/quote]
You’re from Agadir, you should know Ilane, so it’s a oil taken from almond
To be honest, I’m not convinced that Ilane is almond oil. I can’t find it anywhere, even in my Arabic dictionary.
But I do have a recipe written in Arabic for Hssoua Ilane, and it starts off the list of ingredients with “a bowlful of small ilane”. The recipe proceeds for cooking just like you would for belboula with milk.
About ilane:
Well I don’t think its an oil. In my experience actualy buying it in Morocco its a grain - used mostly in the south (Agadir). It is small and a sort of grey colour. The women always tell you its good (in soup) for the strengthening of bones (e.g. after menopause). And they make it into soup. In Agadir one can buy it already ground - but of course the best way of gringing it is on a stone hand grinder as that way the “chaf” gets separated.
My trouble is to translate it into something we know about.
My two candidates are millet and sarrassin (= buckwheat=black wheat=ble noir). What are the arguments?
Welll in Agadir, when I buy it, the grocer has called it by its French name: millet. But when I compare it with what goes for UK millet I find myself comparing a small white grain wth the grey knobbly thing in Morocco. Its very cheap as a grain (10DH kilo) and millet is regarded as a relatively cheap grain too.
On the other hand in the excellent little booklet by Tefrati Habiba - Les arbres de chez-nous et les plantes sauvages ISBN 9981-906-65-0 on page 18 it distinctly says sarrasin is (between quotes) Alif-lam-alif-nun which reads ilane to those who read arabic. But again comparing the Moroccan grain with the buckwheat I buy in the UK there is not much resemblance. But it does grind to a smokey flour which resembles (in appearance and taste) the sarrassin of renoun in Nantes and that part of France where the pancakes are a speciality.
It is not in Harrels Dictionary (isbn 1-58091-103-1) and of course Arabic dictionaries don’t help as I suspect its a Berber word???
I too would be glad of illumination
Welcome to the boards, elephant. We will be glad to know a little about you in the new comers forum :).
Thank you for the the informative post.
I agree that Ilane is definitely not oil, I was wondering what Loubna was referring to. But at the same time, I don’t think Illan would be used in a soup.
The sound of Illan is definitely Berber, and there are Berber words that can be used as so in Darija.
That was not much for an illumination :).
I’ve been trying to uncover exactly what ilane is for my Moroccan Food web site, and I’ve finally concluded that it is indeed millet based on image searches and other references. And yes, it is cooked like barley (belboula) into a soup…Rachida Amhouche includes it in her collection and my husband’s mother used to prepare it. I asked some women about it at Marjane recently and they also agree that it’s excellent cooked into hssoua.
Interestingly, there’s a reference in a 2004 NY Times article to a “Dar Ilane” in Morocco, and the translation of “Millet House” is offered.
Funny how some words seem so elusive when trying to translate them from darija or Arabic.
Hope this info is useful to some. Don’t mean to jump in without an intro (I’ll go post one now) but I saw this thread and wanted to comment. Love this forum, by the way. I’ve learned a lot from lurking around and it crops up many times in searches when I’m trying to decide on a spelling for a transliteration.