The Soup Strikes Back.

Following my flatmate’s bout of food poisoning (to me, minor; to her, ghastly), I was forced to forgo making a rich lasagna for dinner and instead replace it with something a little less heavy and a little easier to digest.

The brief was that it couldn’t require much effort on her part, had to involve a broth and absolutely had to contain glass noodles. The answer here was obvious: I’ve already hammered on about the healing properties of soup, and what better way to really rehash a tired argument than to blog about it again?

This time around, the soup was light and fragrant and filled with fresh ingredients. The chicken remained tender and moist and the bok choy added a nice dose of clean, natural flavour. If possible, I much prefer using fresh vegetables over tinned or even frozen. There’s something invigorating about eating pure and wholesome vegetables that you can’t really emulate in a cylindrical piece of aluminum or a plastic bag. Buy in season and, if you live near one, buy from a fruit and vegetable market, such as Paddy’s in Sydney. You save money this way and also get the most bang for your hard-earned buck in terms of freshness and flavour.

The use of fresh vegetables also really ups the healing ante with the addition of extra vitamins and minerals. It was the perfect antidote to my flatmate’s ailments and the best way to silence her cries of pain (admittedly only for a lowly ten minutes) as she noisily slurped it down.

Chicken, Noodle and Bok Choy Soup.

Chicken, Noodle and Bok Choy Soup

Serves 4

4 chicken drumsticks

1.5L chicken stock

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/2 tsp powdered ginger

200g dried rice sticks (also known as rice noodles)

1 bunch bok choy, washed and roughly chopped

pepper, to taste

1. Place the stock and the chicken drumsticks into a large pot and bring to the boil.

2. Reduce to a simmer and add the soy sauce, ginger and pepper.

3. Simmer on medium heat for around 40 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. Pull a piece out and cut open to check.

4. Add the rice noodles, cover with the soup stock and cook for a further 10 minutes or until the noodles are cooked through.

5. Add the chopped bok choy and cook for another 5 minutes.

6. Check the seasoning and add more soy sauce accordingly.

7. Remove from the heat and ladle into bowls to serve.

* If you so desire, you can shred the chicken off the bones after they’re cooked and re-add it. Much to my flatmate’s embarrassment, I’m an infamous bone-gnawer and prefer to keep it on.

Spice World.

I fell in love today.

Sorry, dumplings, but I’ve possibly found a new flame. And this affair’s a little more spicy – boom, TISH!

My flatmate and I were visiting one of our regular shopping haunts after uni, Paddy’s Markets in Sydney’s Haymarket. Forget scrounging around for vintage finds in Rozelle or salivating over Paddington’s designer wares – when you’re in our position, grocery shopping becomes your favourite pastime. We have regular discussions over which type of milk powder to buy or what our preferred types of dishcloth are. Oh yes we do.

I digress. We were doing the weekly fruit and vege shop when we stumbled across a stall we had never seen before. A stall that was, quite seriously, going to change my life. Well, my spice rack at least.

Green Valley Spices was a beacon of colourful exuberance – fat, overloaded pots of almost every kind of spice, seasoning and even tea that let off the most wonderful mix of smells.

Bucketloads of spices

Cinnamon was there and za’atar was there and turmeric and paprika and ground fennel were there. Vanilla beans, cinnamon sticks and bark, whole cloves and cardamom pods. Seasonings for every type of meat, as well as chunky teas – not that powdery supermarket kind.

We were tempted to get some of the chai tea mix – loaded with broken cinnamon sticks, cardamom pods and whole cloves. The camomile tea also looked intriguing, with its whole camomile flowers that were such a far cry from the bags we’re accustomed to. But our budget sadly only stretched to a few spices.

Vibrant turmeric and paprika

Instead we were more than satisfied to leave with 100g of cinnamon, 100g of za’atar and 50g of chilli flakes for $8. Getting your spices at the supermarket? Be prepared to spend more than twice that.

Most spices were $3 for 100g, $5 for 200g, $8 for 500g and $15 for 1kg. The teas were a little more exxy, starting at $9 for 100g, but still a comparative bargain to supermarket shopping.

A wall of spices

For dinner we decided to do something impromptu and spice-fuelled: sumac tomato salad and toasted sourdough with olive oil and za’atar.

‘Now what are these crazy things?’ You may ask. Sumac is a reddish-purplish spice with a tangy, almost lemony flavour. Za’atar is a mix of dried herbs: oregano, basil and thyme together with sesame seeds, salt and other spices, including sumac. They’re both generally used in Middle Eastern cuisine and are both equally as delicious.

Sumac tomato salad

Sumac Tomato Salad

Serves 2

2 tomatoes, chopped into wedges

2 tsp sumac

2 TBSP extra-virgin olive oil

1. Arrange tomatoes on a plate or in a bowl
2. Mix together sumac and olive oil
3. Drizzle over tomatoes
4. Serve

Sourdough toast, za'atar, olive oil and tomato salad

Toasted Sourdough with Za’atar

Serves 2

4-6 pieces of sourdough bread, toasted

½ cup extra-virgin olive oil

½ cup za’atar

1. It’s quite simple really: a bowl for the oil, a bowl for the za’atar and a plate for each person. Dip your bread in the oil and then the za’atar and voila, utter deliciousness with less than sixty seconds preparation time.

Green Valley Spices
Paddy’s Market, Haymarket
Sydney