Fast, Cheap and Good

  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 f...