Minnie's Soup Kitchen

Lamb Meatball Soup Yesterday I decided to go off piste from The Soup Book . I leafed through The Lebanese Kitchen by Salma Hage and found a fairly simple recipe for lamb meatball soup. Meatballs, tomatoes, sweetcorn, spices: what's not to like? Whenever I think of minced meat I think of minced beef rather than minced lamb, but minced lamb is becoming increasingly available. The recipe calls for seven spices seasoning (also known as Lebanese mixed spices ), which I haven't heard of before. The spouse searched on the internet for me and found several different combinations of spices. Eventually I opted for a mix of black pepper, cumin, paprika, coriander, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon and cardamon. Decision made, I set to making the meatballs. These consisted of minced lamb, grated onion, flour and the spice mixture. Rings off and hands washed, I began mashing and pounding the ingredients together. I then shaped seventeen meatballs, all the while thinking of an old song my f...

Lebanese Lentil and Lamb Soup My soup effort came about by chance. I was going to slob around after last weekend's hosting activity (the sister J'Zo and husband G'Cro were staying with us) but when the spouse said he was going to make soup I thought I'd better take up my wooden spoon and stir. The spouse has acquired a few new cookbooks lately, one of which is Salma Hage's The Lebanese Kitchen . I'm not familiar with typical Lebanese foodstuffs, let alone recipes, but for me cooking can be like travelling without leaving the confines of my kitchen. The ingredients for this recipe include onion, garlic, lamb, a bay leaf, thyme, rosemary, dried green lentils, sun-dried tomatoes, baby spinach and mint. The preparation involves the usual peeling, chopping and cooking. I gently fried the onion and garlic, then added the lamb and browned it evenly. Then I made a mistake. The recipe says, "Pour in the hot stock and add all the herbs." I did, but then r...