Minnie's Soup Kitchen

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...

Harira Harira: browning the meat and bones Oh, happy day! Oh, happy tastebuds! Yesterday's soup was one of those soups that I have no qualms about adding to my "make it again" list. Using Sophie Grigson 's recipe for this Berber speciality, I made a soup that  all four of us enjoyed: the spouse, the younger offspring, Juno (my mother-in-law) and I. Yes, that's right: even the younger offspring was unstinting in his praise. All it took was an onion, a shoulder of lamb, ground ginger, ground cinnamon, parsley, coriander, brown lentils, tomatoes, vermicelli, chickpeas, flour and lemons. And my smaller dekshee.  I chopped what needed to be chopped then set to cooking. First I fried the onions until translucent, after which I added in the ground spices, the chopped herbs, the meat and the bones. Next in were the brown lentils, chopped tomatoes (tinned) and sundried tomato paste. When these were well mixed I poured in water and left the lot to simmer. H...

Traditional Lamb Broth Just in case you were wondering why there was no new blog entry last weekend, I was away in the Savoie region of France. It wasn't a soup-making-free zone: I made a leek and potato soup for my hosts from a recipe I found on a dedicated leek and potato soup website ! This weekend we've been travelling home, unpacking, washing dirty clothes and trying to get ready for the school and work week ahead. I decided I would try and squeeze in a soup, if only to round the number made up to one hundred and ten! The recipe from The Soup Book for traditional lamb broth is by Marie-Pierre Moine . The ingredients include middle neck lamb cutlets, celery, parsnip, carrot, potato, spring onions, parsley, cabbage and allspice berries. It being a Sunday, the spouse did not have much luck with middle neck lamb cutlets and was rather disappointed by his preferred butcher's lack of interest. Never mind! A couple of packets of shoulder chops have had to suffice.  ...

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...