Skip to main content

Curried Broth with Peppers

Curried Broth with Peppers 

Today is a lovely sunny day in early June but I have chosen to make a hot curried soup. I was pondering what to make for dinner this evening and the spouse said that we had a lot of vegetables in the fridge. I knew there were quite a few peppers so checked in The Soup Book to see how I could use them up. This soup is based on yet another recipe by Roopa Gulati and contains star anise, nigella seeds, fennel seeds, fenugreek seeds, onions, root ginger, an orange pepper and a yellow pepper, basmati rice, turmeric, garam masala, vegetable stock, date palm sugar, lemon and coriander leaves. If you can't find nigella seeds, there are a few spices or herbs you can substitute for them. I didn't use a substitute for the nigella seeds, but I did for the date palm sugar - I just used dark brown sugar and hoped for the best.

The different seeds smelled delicious as I fried them together before adding the onion and ginger. Star anise is a new addition to my repertoire of spices and one I associate with Chinese cookery. I find that some chefs can be rather heavy handed in their use of it. Back to the soup. The peppers, rice, turmeric and garam masala are added after the onions are fried, then you pour in the stock, sugar and lemon zest. The finished soup is very good and feels healthy. The older offspring is away (again) so it's up to the younger offspring to pronounce judgement.

Bee Tell Mania 

Lots to tell about bees today! Bees seem to be attracted mainly to the chive flowers in my back garden, but the lavender in the front garden has yet to live up to its reputation. The absence of clustering bees could have something to do with the fact that lavender plants haven't flowered yet. Also conspicuous by their absence are the solitary bees who were supposed to be availing of my hospitality in the bee box. I have even pruned the bamboo in the back garden and cut up more stems to put in the bee box. The bee tourist industry is not thriving.

In case anyone was wondering, I was away last weekend. I made good use of my time and read a couple of articles about keeping bees and the joys of honey in The Lady and The Guardian magazines respectively.

Here are some links to articles of interest:
And finally, I received an e-mail from the County Dublin Beekeepers' Association letting me know that they'll be exhibiting at Bloom 2011. I hope we haven't left it too late to get tickets.



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Miso Soup with Tuna

Miso Soup with Tuna This weekend I made a soup from the soup and shellfish section of The Soup Book , mainly because I'm aware this is the section through which I have made least progress. Leafing through the fish soup recipes, miso soup with tuna was the first one I came across that I hadn't made (the last fish soup was the creamy scallop bisque in December 2012). I read through the ingredients listed by Carolyn Humphries : what is wakame ? where do I get it and dried shitake mushrooms and miso paste? Apart from those three items, it was easy enough to obtain a carrot, spring onions, ginger, fresh tuna and chives. The spouse made a detour from the usual shopping route to his f avourite fishmonger's shop  then went into town for dried wakame. So, at about 5.30pm yesterday evening, I set about making the soup. I made up chicken stock from a cube and left the shitake mushrooms and wakame soaking in cold water while I prepared the vegetables and diced the tuna. Next, I ...
1 comment
Read more

Lovage Soup

Lovage Soup   Today I made lovage soup, the second recipe by Sophie Grigson in The Soup Book that I have used in the last four days. She introduces the recipe with these remarks: "If you don't grow this old-fashioned herb yourself, ask around among your gardening friends or head down to the nearest garden centre to see if they sell it. " As I mentioned in my last blog entry (18th May), lovage now features among the herbs in my front garden. As the spouse left the camera at home, I took some photographs. Parsley, sorrel and lovage in Minnie's garden. Rosemary, parsley and lovage in Minnie's garden.  I had hoped to add chervil to my collection of herbs - there's a recipe for vegetable and chervil soup in The Soup Book - but "Young Stephen" wasn't able to source any for me. At least he tried. Just while I'm mentioning Stephen, I have to reveal that the spouse and the older offspring claim that he has been mention...
1 comment
Read more

Traditional Chicken Soup

Traditional Chicken Soup The weekend just gone was another busy one but for happy reasons. The younger offspring has just become a teenager. Fortunately there were no tantrums, no sulks, no studied indifference. The excitement was occasionally muted but for the most part he was unselfconscious in his enjoyment of the celebrations. I made him white chocolate brownies which are one of his favourite home bakes. The celebrations meant delaying the preparation of the soup. It was a two-staged recipe anyway which meant I could make stock in advance. We had lemon-roasted chicken for dinner yesterday so I saved the carcass to make stock for the soup. The ingredients for the stock were the chicken carcass ( Marie-Pierre Moine suggests this as an alternative to using a whole chicken), carrot, leek, garlic, dried mushrooms (which the spouse bought but which I forgot to put in the pot), celery, parsley and thyme. When I got home from work this evening I got stuck into making the soup. T...
Post a Comment
Read more