My Astoria Soup with slow cooked Middle Eastern spiced lamb and Flatbreads.

Yes I know, I know but I am no longer distracted (read procrastinating) and you have my full attention.

This recipe I have been wanting to try for ages and it is from Jamie's America by Jamie Oliver (of course). Now I don't mind Jamie but what does irritate me is the way he pours olive oil over EVERYTHING even food that requires a more neutral tasting oil. I turn into Harry Enfield's Angry Frank when he uses it with Indian or Thai.

The problem with this recipe was getting hold of one of the ingredients which is called sumac, it is a berry which is dried and ground and it adds a lovely lemony taste. Luckily for me one day I am mooching around the world food aisles in Asda and found it. People may have stared when I let out a squeal of delight. If you can't find it I think lemon juice/zest would work fine.

I really fancied some lamb as well so I added a spiced slow cooked half shoulder of lamb, recipe to follow.

So here is is:

Serves 6

75g Bulgar Wheat

1 red onion, finely chopped

1 red pepper, finely chopped

1 yellow pepper, finely chopped

1 green pepper, finely chopped

4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

Olive oil

Sea salt and fresh ground black pepper

2 tablespoons of Sumac

2 tablespoons of Zahtar

1 teaspoon of Cumin

1 tablespoon of smoked paprika

12 cherry tomatoes, halved

1 x 400g tin of chopped tomatoes

1.3 litres of duck, chicken or vegetable stock

6 flour tortillas (or any type of flat bread)

Handful of fresh mint, picked and roughly torn

1 lime cut into wedges to serve

Although the recipe calls for just bulgar wheat I used a mixture of bulgar wheat, red and white quinoa which works just as well.

There is a lot of time consuming chopping which doesn't bother me all so much, you could probably use a food processor but make sure you don't over process other wise you may well end up with gazpacho soup.

Fry the veg and garlic in olive oil, with salt and pepper for a about 3 mins on the highest heat then add the spices and fry for another minute. Add the rest of the ingredients, bring to the boil and simmer for ten minutes.

I used the lamb juices plus the stock to make up the 1.3 litres in the soup the only thing I would do next time is skim the fat off the juices as it was slightly oily, thankfully the addition of the sumac and the wedge of lime cut through most of the cloying fattiness.

Any kind of flatbread or even pitas would work. Home made flatbreads would be excellent but on this occasion I used store brought rotis. Sprinkle some sumac, zahtar and cumin on top along with a little olive oil then pop into a 180c oven on top of a baking tray till the edges brown and crisp up. You could probably use a frying pan to do this as well.

Slow cooked lamb shoulder

Serves 4-6

1 shoulder or half a shoulder

2 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon cumin

1 tablespoon coriander

1 tablespoon Sumac

2 crushed fat cloves of garlic

Half a pint of water

1. Preheat the oven to 230c.
2.  Rub the lamb all over with the spices, garlic, olive oil and salt and pepper.
3. Pour the water into a pot and add the lamb, put into the oven without the lid until the lamb is brown on top.
4. Turn the heat down to 150c, put the lid on and cook between 3 to 6 hours depending on the size of the lamb.

When the lamb is ready it should pull cleanly away from the bone. 

The lamb be equally tasty with toasted pitas, tzatziki and a Greek salad.

And here is the finished dish, I added a scattering of fresh coriander along with the mint and despite forgetting to add cumin the dish was still excellent.The soup itself is quite thin but that makes it lovely and refreshing and it has an added bonus of being quite a cheap (minus the lamb) and easy dish to rustle up.

Mmmm Spicy Tomato Chutney!

Apologies for the long break. The recipe I am going to share with you in this post is not from Nigel Slater’s book. It is a chutney recipe that I have been making for years that just about everyone loves. I found it one Christmas when I had no money and decided to make presents instead, it is Mary Berry recipe but I have altered it to my own taste over the years. It goes excellent with cheese and crackers, especially blue cheese or extra mature cheddar. I have even been known to have it in a post drunken night sausage or bacon and egg sandwich.

The ingredients:

900g tomatoes

3 red peppers, 1 large aubergine and 1 green pepper (total weight of about 900g/2lb)

700g onions , peeled and fairly finely chopped, by hand or in a food processor

4 fat cloves garlic , crushed

2 whole fresh chillies with the stalk chopped off.

350g granulated sugar

300ml/½pint white wine vinegar or distilled malt vinegar

1 tbsp salt

1 tbsp coriander seeds, crushed

1 tbsp cumin seeds crushed

1 tbsp paprika (You can use smoked)

½ tsp cayenne pepper

1 ½ tbsps Cornflour dissolved in water

First you need to remove the skins from the tomatoes, I hate this job but it has to be done otherwise it affects the texture of the chutney. With a sharp knife put a shallow cut on either side of the tomatoes, boil some water and pop them in for about a minute (turn the heat off too). Once you see the skin start to come away put them into cold water, preferably ice cold so that they don’t start to cook.

While they are cooling toast the cumin and coriander seeds in a pan until you can smell the spices then crush them and mix together with the other spices.

I really recommend that you chop the onions in a food processor along with the chilli finely, it makes life a lot easier. I know in the photos there is no chilli. I didn't have any at the time so I added two teaspoons of chilli powder.

Skin the tomatoes and chop with the rest of the vegetables. It needs to chunky otherwise it will disappear when you cook it. Put them all including the onions and garlic into a large heavy based pan. It does look like a lot but it will cook down. Bring to the boil, turn down to a simmer and cook for 1 hour.

Add the sugar, vinegar, salt and spices to the pan and stir in. Now the original recipe says to reduce for 30 minutes until the surplus liquid has evaporated, I have tried this over and over again and on one occasion burnt it because I left it cooking too long. A friend suggested cornflour, so the last batch I made I added 1 ½ tablespoons of cornflour dissolved in water. It did the trick and didn’t affect the taste.

To sterilise the jars either put them in the dishwasher, wet them then put them 2 at a time in the microwave for a minute, or put them in a hot oven (wet) for a few minutes. Put the chutney into them while it is hot and seal straight away. It usually fills four (and a bit) 500g jars or seven 300g.

It should be matured for 3 months but it rarely lasts as long as that ;)