World Travels - Kazakhstan

 

I have been reading Red Sands by Caroline Eden recently; a sort of travelogue with recipes through Central Asia.  Even though the recipes seem to be the antipathy to my kind of cuisine (ie plant based foods) the writing is exquisite with little vignettes into Caroline Eden's travels. 

'In the shattered rear-view mirror, the land was pink from the rising sun. The fractured looking glass rendered the desert view, mainly sand dunes, scrub and small hills, broken and repetitive. On the road, between the cities of Bukhara and Khiva - some stretches good, others badly potholed - there was a sense of slowly evaporating, of being dwarfed by the Kyzylkum ('red sand') Desert.'

Whilst browsing the recipes and stories I came across a recipe: Meatball, Lavash and Chickpea Soup. This consisted of lamb meatballs seasoned with paprika and cumin in a thin bouillion with chickpeas, lavash or pitta bread, dill and parsley.  Caroline Eden had this particular dish in Karaganda known for its mining industry and monuments to Yuri Gagarin.  Taking liberties I substituted the meatballs for lion's mane mushrooms and the chicken stock for vegetable stock to make an extremely hearty meal freshened by piles of herbs.

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 500 ml of vegetable stock
• Couple handfuls of pre-cooked chickpeas
• 2 pitta bread
• Dill fronds roughly chopped
• Flat leaf parsley roughly chopped
• 150g Lion's mane mushroom
• Garlic clove, crushed
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper

Instructions

1. In a mixing bowl combine the olive oil, garlic, paprika, cumin and seasoning.
2. Break the mushrooms into big chunks and place in the bowl with the rest of the oil mixture.
3. Coat the mushrooms in the marinade.
4. Heat a frying pan on a medium heat and add a little oil to the pan.
5. Add the mushroom and fry for around 10 minutes.
6. In a separate saucepan add the vegetable stock and chickpeas and simmer for around 10 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook for another 5 to 10 minutes.
7. Toast or grill the pitta and cut into shards.
8. Ladle the soup into bowls and scatter with the pitta and the herbs. 

I will leave you with another quote from Caroline Eden's book whilst in Karaganda - it is just such evocative writing.

'Temptation. I stepped onto the balcony, into the cold clear night, and with the packet in my hand, looked up at the Milky Way, our galaxy, named after 'gala' the Greek word for milk, each star believed to be a drop of spilled breast milk from goddess Hera. I lit a cigarette and imagined the cosmonauts up there, then down here, landing somewhere on Kazakhstan's flat plains. Vast cosmic space and immense human achievements, mirroring the hopes, possibilities and loneliness of all life on earth.'