In Tunisia, partiers and laborers line up during the pre-dawn hours for the same thing: steaming bowls of lablabi, a hearty soup of chickpeas and stale baguette that tastes so much better than it sounds.

For an older generation, lablabi is hot breakfast. For a younger, it is late-night, after-club grub. Like so many of the world’s soups, it was born to use the bits and scraps a kitchen naturally produces.

But unlike the long, low simmers so often used to draw such ingredients together, lablabi is built in the moment. And as a composed, rather than long-simmered soup, its flavors and textures remain pleasantly distinct — and perfect for our book, “Milk Street Tuesday Nights,” which limits recipes to 45 minutes or less.

Our version of this brothy-bready soup gets punches of flavor from garlic, tomato paste and toasted cumin, but a defining ingredient is harissa. The North African red pepper paste packs both heat and a range of spices, adding complexity that ties all the flavors together.

Instead of using stale bread, we got better texture by toasting chunks of crusty bread in olive oil to make croutons while the soup simmered. Green olives, cilantro, soft-cooked eggs and plenty of harrisa were perfect toppings, and a hit of lemon juice to finish keeps things tasting bright.