Skip to main content

Chicken and Yogurt Soup with Chili and Lemon

Salma's Chicken and Yogurt Soup with Chili and Lemon

Yes, it's been a while since I last wrote a blog entry but I have been making soup. We had a lovely October bank holiday weekend here in Dublin. The two offspring were away at different events, so the spouse and I relaxed and had plenty of time to cook. I made this soup using Salma Hage's recipe from The Lebanese Kitchen. Ingredients: leek (sliced), garlic (crushed), a bay leaf (picked from the garden), chicken stock (home-made and thawed out), chicken breasts (cut into strips), cornflour, yogurt, canned chickpeas (drained and rinsed), chili flakes, lemon juice, chopped coriander, and a pinch of paprika.

I sweated the leek in butter and olive oil, before adding the garlic and bay leaf. In went the chicken stock and then the chicken strips, which were then left to simmer. I took out the chicken strips (difficult to separate out the leek slices) and then tried to thicken the soup with a little cornflour paste. This proved tricky. I had to add more but it still didn't thicken as much as I'd expected. The yogurt and chickpeas were in next, followed by the cooked chicken. The rest of the ingredients were tipped in and then I dished up. Very tasty and flavoursome. There was plenty leftover and so I gave some to the older offspring when he arrived home this afternoon. He too was impressed.

Repeating Roopa

Today I made Roopa Gulati's spiced lamb broth (from The Soup Book). I first made it in February 2011 and I must have like it because I wrote "Yum!" in my book. It went down just as well today, even though I couldn't find chestnut mushrooms (not available in my local shops) or black cardamons (in the press all along).

Bee Buzz

A few of us in my book group read Philip Pullman's Grimm Tales for Young and Old. I really enjoyed the stories: I was transported back to my childhood when I liked nothing better than to curl up with the Andrew Lang books and another book of fairy stories I was given one Christmas. Pullman has added comments to his retelling of the old German stories, pointing out their similarities to old Russian, French, Italian and British stories. He also points out the strange twists in the stories and how the narrative changes direction unexpectedly. The following extract is from "The Two Travelling Companions":

When he turned away ready to set off again, he found he was standing in front of an old hollow tree where dozens of wild bees were flying in and out.
'Honey!' he thought at once. 'Thank goodness!...'
But he'd hardly moved a step towards the tree when the queen bee came flying out.
I was in the north of England recently. Here are a couple of photos which show I think about my blog even though I might not be keeping it up to date as assiduously as in previous years.

Yellow bumble bee badge

The Beehive Pub, Carlisle

Until next time.

Minnie




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tuscan Bean Soup

Tuscan Bean Soup This recipe calls for canned beans (borlotti, flageolet or cannellini) and as I have been tidying and cleaning out our cupboards I've used cannellini beans. I have to mention that the younger offspring has done an impressive job on the cupboards. That's enough about him. Back to me and my soup! Other ingredients include onion, carrots, leek, garlic, tomatoes, tomato puree (I substituted sun-dried tomato paste as there was an open jar of it in the fridge), chicken stock (I had to use a cube as my home-made reserves have been used up) and spinach.When ready it's served with ciabatta bread, grated Parmesan and a drizzle of olive oil. So it's quite a rich soup. We've just had the Tuscan bean soup for lunch. All enjoyed it. The adult males were particularly forthcoming in their praise. The spouse liked the "tomato-ey sharpness" and mused that ham stock should be considered as an alternative to chicken stock. Bees' Cheese and other recipes H

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

Mulligatawny Manoeuvres

Mulligatawny I see it's only been six months since I last made mulligatawny. The first time was back in May 2011 when I followed Roopa Gulati's recipe in The Soup Book ; last September I used The Essential Asian Cookbook . Today I used Rick Stein's India , a Christmas present from the spouse. It's one of those luxurious recipe books with thick paper and beautiful, vibrantly colourful photos. We had all been impressed by Roopa's recipe, less so by the second book, so how would we fare today? Well, those two recipes both involved apple. Rick's did not, so I felt that this must be a more authentic recipe. If Anglo-Indian cooking has any authenticity these days. Still, Rick states that his recipe is on the menu at the Madras Club in Chennai. It involves making a spice paste first and then the soup. Ingredients: The paste called for coriander seeds, cumin seeds, peppercorns, curry powder, turmeric, garlic, ginger, and fresh coriander, curry and mint leave