I am nocturnal again, and I have embraced it.
On the days where work people schedule morning meetings and seminars, I stagger through the day zombie-like and muted, but otherwise, it's grand! Like a secret life in the quiet night.
So I made stock at 1am tonight. With the carcass of a bought roast chicken and carrots from the garden, the usual onion and celery, a slightly old piece of ginger, a long red chilli, several cloves of garlic, a small bunch of sage, two bay leaves and a sprinkling of black peppercorns. I wondered if the sage and bay leaves would go along with the sort of asian-y ginger and chilli, and it was fine! I think the trick with chicken stock is to leave some meat on the bones, otherwise you're just waiting for the flavour to turn up and it doesn't.
The stock was done in 45 minutes and was gloriously rich and flavourful. Yum! And then I made spicy chickpea soup with it, by adding in a can of chickpeas. I made this once with dried chickpeas and I think the truth of it is that I have not the patience to soak or cook the buggers long enough. I also added some cumin to taste, and whizzed it up with the scarily powerful metal whizzy stick. Bear is usually the whizzy stick technician in our household, and I see why now, because I dirtied up two (two!) otherwise clean pots to get the right depth of liquid to prevent the stuff splashing everywhere. Of course by the time I was done it had splashed everywhere anyway, but whatever.
I heated it up again to simmer for a bit, then took it off the heat and added the juice of half a lemon. To taste. And then, for the hell of it, whisked in an egg. I froze most of it and then ate the rest with parsley and pepper.
So there you have it! That is how you make spicy chickpea soup with lemon and egg at 3am in the morning, not that the time really matters, but at 3am, no one is around to say anything about the mess you've made. And after that, a banana with ice cream, chocolate sauce and toasted almonds for dessert!
Yum for private feasting!
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