Resonances

I'm not sure this blog has mentioned that the British Library's food writing season is on? It's been a splendid thing for the last few years, and I very much enjoyed tonight's event with splendid Kate Young (of the Little Library books, which have starred here), talking about food in crime fiction. 

But also, somewhat wistfully. It was Liz who introduced me to the food season a while back, and I'm pretty sure she was booked onto this event. Since today also I've almost made myself cry over mirepoix ("I know, it would be easier to keep it in the freezer ready-chopped," I think, reaching back to the first few weeks of this blog, and as if I can have that conversation on twitter still), I am plenty vulnerable to wobbles. Yes, I do talk back in the kitchen to those of you who have given good advice on this blog... it's been a long time alone.

However, this wobbling tendency is not a reason to miss the BL series. Plenty worth your time, and I'm doing some of the other events into May, including a webinar on home cooking which feels topically relevant here. 

Meanwhile, in my home cooking, I'm still cooking veg. Dinners are currently oil-braised leeks with peas, dill, garlic and such, served with feta - my kind of transitional season cooking. 

But, rather more startlingly, I'm still working through Carpathia, and I am having a lettuce broth for lunches. A lettuce broth with omelette and yoghurt and vinegar. I don't know this cuisine, but I'm really enjoying finding out about it. 

This requires a base of caramelised cooked veg (hence the mirepoix moment), stock added, and cooked for 10 minutes. 

Then a plain omelette fried alongside. 2 eggs, 1 minute per side in an oiled pan, turn it out and slice it. This will go into the soup/broth at the end of the cooking.  

 While waiting for the 10 minutes, put plenty of Greek yoghurt (200g says the recipe, I guess I reduced it as it's a smaller recipe for me) into a bowl that allows you to add liquid in future.

Also while waiting, shred romaine lettuce and locate white wine vinegar. Once the soup base has cooked for a while, add the lettuce shreds and up to 4 tbsps vinegar (again, I reduced it). The recipe says take the pan off the heat at once, but I let the lettuce wilt a couple of minutes because I actually prefer cooked lettuce. 

Then ladle some of the hot broth into the yoghurt till it's warm, and pour the lot back into the soup base. I'm assuming this is to stop the yoghurt splitting, though with most yoghurt I reckon you'd be pretty safe.

 Once you have your yoghurty soup, pop the omelette in, along with chopped dill, and chopped spring onion if I'd remembered to do that.  

It's nice. Intriguing. Slightly crunchy. I'm not 100% on the omelette strips here, but if they were pancakes instead I might be more comfortable so, eh, that's probably just me.