Onion and Almond Soup

Onion and Almond Soup

This weekend I made my thirty-fifth soup from The Soup Book - onion and almond.  It caught my eye several months ago, but I was put off by one of the listed ingredients, namely nigella seeds (Nigella sativa).  I didn't know what they were and I hadn't seen them any where in the course of my shopping, but eventually I looked them up. They are also known as black cumin, onion seed or nigella and are used in curries.  A suggested substitute is mustard seeds and that's what I used.  The recipe is by Roopa Gulati and listed among its ingredients are onions, almonds, chicken stock, red chilli, muscovado sugar, balsamic vinegar and cream. The preparation takes a little time and that's just the garnish. Preparation consists of finely slicing an onion, sprinkling it with sea salt and setting it aside for at least two hours before deep-frying it. We don't possess a deep fat fryer, so I had to use a small frying pan with about half an inch of oil. Later there was the steeping of almonds in boiling water for fifteen minutes prior to removing their skins and making a paste out of the skinned nuts. Then begins the central soup-making phase.

I made the soup yesterday evening, omitting the cream, in preparation for lunch at the mother-in-law's house today, so it was the first soup to leave the premises. Not only was it brought elsewhere for consumption, but it also lingered en route in the boot of the spouse's car while he, the younger offspring and I went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 1). At the mother-in-law's, I added the cream and heated the soup on her electric hob - I prefer cooking on a gas ring.  Everyone enjoyed the soup and it's on my list of soups that I might make again.

What's the buzz?

This has been a busy week. The writing course I have been attending since the end of September came to an end last Tuesday. The spouse, the younger offspring and I went to Second Age's production of Dancing at Lughnasa at the Helix Theatre. Yesterday morning I was at a comedy improv session and in the afternoon the younger offspring and I put in an hour at a local festival.

The spouse provided me with this link to photos of bees.
In The Ticket section of last Friday's Irish Times I spotted a reference to a music project called Sea of Bees.

That's all for now.