ENGLISH MUM: never knowingly undercatered

Seeing as our favourite Sunday lunch of all time is roast lemon chicken, I feel we’re somewhat wasteful with the leftovers as generally I’m too squeamish (or too knackered after the whole Sunday lunch palaver) to bother about picking over the considerable remains of 2kg of chicken, and it just goes in the bin. This Sunday, then, I made a mental note to save the chicken, and spent a mind-numbing half hour picking off each and every little bit of leftover meat. I probably had a good cereal bowl full after I was done (and Bertie got all the icky bits, lucky boy). Here, then, is the soup I made on Monday lunchtime, which we ate for supper (or tea or whatever) along with some of Rachel Allen’s Honey Brown Bread, which is dead easy to make and a very nice way to while away a rainy Cavan afternoon. I’m calling it ‘fragrant’ rather than ‘curried’ as I’m feeling all creative and artistic following the bread-making, and anyway it sounds better.

Fragrant Chicken Soup with Lentils

1 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
4 spring onions, sliced thinly
1 tsp Garam Masala or curry powder would do I guess
1 bowl cooked chicken, shredded
2 chicken stock cubes crumbled into 1 litre boiling water
1 carrot, finely chopped
Couple of large handfuls of lentils

So heat your oil in a nice heavy saucepan or Le Creuset casserole if you’re that loaded (I want a pink one please, Santa). Finely chop your onion and add to the pan along with a generous sprinkling of salt to stop them browning too much. When they’re slightly softened and translucent add the spring onions. Then sprinkle over the Garam Masala and stir well. Meanwhile, boil the kettle and make up the stock. Add this to the saucepan and then bung in your chicken, carrots and lentils (I used green), plus any other leftover veg you might have floating around.

Cover your soup and leave it to simmer away gently on a low heat until the vegetables are soft and the lentils cooked (nothing worse than chewing on an undercooked lentil) and your whole kitchen is steamy and fragrant. Season to taste, sprinkle on a final flourish of chopped coriander, then trough with mountains of brown bread. Yurrrrmmm.