Happy Birthday, Dad!
Mussels are so incredibly easy to cook, it’s hard to go wrong. After debearding them and giving them a once over with a brush, these mussels were thrown into a pot with some sauteed onions, parsley and white wine, steamed until they opened. Serve immediately with a crusty baguette! Mmmmm….
I recently bought “The Soup Peddlar’s Slow & Difficult Soups” by David Ansell, who shares with us his first season of serving soup to those in his neighbourhood and 35 soup recipes. I have to admit that I’ve skipped past all the reminiscing and straight to the soup recipes. I flipped through a number that sounded promising but how could I go past the ‘Armenian Apricot Soup’? Kinda like a watery dahl but with the sweetness of apricots instead of warmth of spices. I did add a few dashes of white pepper to cut through some of the sweetness but all-in-all the soup was quite delicious.
Armenian Apricot Soup
1 tbs olive oil, 2 onions (diced), 3 carrots (chopped), 1 tbs groud cumin, 3 cups red lentils, 10 cups water, 375g dried apricots (chopped), salt & white pepper
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Saute onions in carrots in olive oil for around 10 min.
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Add cumin and stir well before decreasing heat and sweating vegetables for 10 min
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Add lentils and enough water to cover. Bring to a simmer and cook for 20 min until softened. Top up water as required
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Remove from heat and stir in apricots, remaining water and season. Puree until smooth and serve hot (although I think room temp is fine too)
May 26th, 2006 at 6:26 am
I see so much about the soup man’s cookbook. Your post convinces me I need that book!
May 26th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
lovely….the aroma of the clams is …………….
May 26th, 2006 at 3:00 pm
oooh you had me at Mussels
May 26th, 2006 at 3:43 pm
The mussels and the soup were delicious.
May 26th, 2006 at 5:17 pm
wow, apricot soup sounds so interesting. At first it sounded strange =) but with the addition of the cumin, lentils and onions… mmm… sounds dee-lish!
May 26th, 2006 at 7:10 pm
tanna: I haven’t tried any other recipes yet but they do look good.
FC: steaming mussels in a wine broth – just the best!
Clare:
FE: Thanks, D!
Helen: Yep, I felt pretty strange blending apricots into the soup but it turned out better than I expected. I would definitely recommend adding heaps of pepper too (I’m partial to white pepper myself).
May 28th, 2006 at 2:35 pm
..yum..I love the way you cooked the mussels!
May 31st, 2006 at 3:09 pm
Yum… both the mussels and the soup sound lovely. i’ll be trying the soup very soon.