Mid Week Surprise

Spiced Lamb Broth

Regular readers of Minnie's Soup Kitchen will know that I usually cook my soups at the weekend. Well, it's Wednesday 9th February, I'm at home and there's a pot bubbling away on the hob. The spouse had bought a few lamb shanks and was going to braise them for Thursday's dinner, but I thought I'd peep into The Soup Book just in case there was a lamb recipe. Of course there was. It's Roopa Gulati's recipe for spiced lamb broth. The ingredients are chicken stock, lamb shank, lamb neck fillet, onions, root ginger, garlic, cumin seeds, cloves, bay leaves, cinnamon stick, green cardamons, brown cardamon, peppercorns, mace, chestnut mushrooms, green chilli and puff pastry. As there was a lot of lamb shank, I'm not using neck fillet. Instead of chicken stock I'm using the turkey stock I made last month. Also I couldn't source chestnut mushrooms locally so have substituted button mushrooms. While out at the green grocer's I had a nice chat with "Young Stephen", who told me he loves mushrooms. We agreed that they are delicious fried or baked with butter and garlic.

Back to the spiced lamb broth. Gulati writes that it's best made the day before. Her finishing touch is a puff pastry lid on each bowl (there should be enough for four portions). I'm not sure that my soup bowls will withstand the heat, so what I might do is put the whole lot into one large oven-proof bowl and cover it with the puff pastry. Now, what could I use as a pie chimney?

Favourite Cake

It's the spouse's birthday today so I am making one of his favourite cakes. It's chocolate Brazil nut cake from a recipe I cut out of Good Housekeeping in the late 1980s (I first used it for the older offspring's christening party). It's a ring cake and contains chocolate, butter, sugar, ground Brazil nuts, eggs and cornflour. When cool, it's coated with chocolate icing. A better-than-Daniel-Craig cake!

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Tuscan Bean Soup

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