lemony chickpea soup with salmon

The last scoop-in-the-pan of home-cooked chickpeas is usually too watery for hummus. But it is a perfect starting point for chickpea soup.

The following recipe is slightly too much for two. No, maybe it isn’t.

I sauté a cup or so of finely cubed carrot and half a cubed onion in olive oil. If you have really fresh really red peppers, you could add some of these as well. A little later, I add a chopped clove of garlic and cook everything a little longer. Now the chickpeas enter with their cooking water - the amount is a little up to taste but I guess that I’d use two or three cups of chickpeas-as-if-drained and as much water as there is. I add fresh water until there is enough soup and bring the whole to the boil. I mash some of the chickpeas with a fork against the side of the pan, but not too many.

In the meantime I have been in the garden for some fresh mint.

chicken thigh fillets with tomatos

About ten years ago, if I’m not mistaken, the skinless chicken thigh fillet made its glorious entry into the Swedish food stores. Everyone knows how they are almost indestructible through inexpert cooking, and that they provide quick help when all ideas seem to have stopped from coming. Heat some oil, rub chicken thigh fillets in curry paste, fry - done. The downside is that the results almost never really bring you to the point where you can say “hey, that’s really something else!”

ratatouille philosophies

Strictly spoken, this blog is not for recipes. There are gazillions of recipes out there, what do I have to contribute? But I will here make half an exception. I am copying a Ratatouille approach from my private recipe collection, because our last batch of this dish gave me reason for additional musings.

I once asked a French flute player about her way of making Ratatouille. She could report nothing very remarkable except for the addition of a “ridiculous amount of herbs.”