Soups…

You might remember that I wanted to try making some Maltese soup in the TM, It worked but the timings were wrong and as a result I had chewy chicken, nutty rice, not quite done potato, carrots and celery. It was still a better lunch than the food they serve at the canteen.

Maltese soup (and I have found this also with Italian soup) is best served hot with a squeeze of lemon juice. When I was nanny for the Maltese family I learnt to make the soup from, the lemon juice was always fresh… when I moved on the squeeze bottles worked quite well (lemon and lime worked). Squeeze bottles do not work so well for me these days as “someone” puts the open ones back in the cupboard not the fridge and they go black by the time I need them again.

Lucky for me my Mother in law has some grapefruit trees that are going insane at the moment and she gave me a bag to try. I have been testing them to see if they can be used instead of lemons and in this case it’s a huge YES. I have played with this recipe and come up with this one. I have also found that small chicken legs will fit in the rice basket and can even be placed around the butterfly or you can "fillet" them with a knife and use the bones for stock. I have not tried this recipe with my MyCook and do not recommend the butterfly method for GSM machines as it is outside of what it was designed for.

I came across a “4 ingredients” recipe for chicken soup when I was unwell and tweaked it as I am not keen on canned foods and neither of us like hot roast chicken breast much either.

I used vegie stock, 1/2 chicken breast, Frozen corn, Onion and carrots

Wizz onion and carrots, sauté with a dob of butter

add cubed chicken breast, stock and corn, cook on varoma temp about 15 mins.

Enjoy your Yummy chicken soup.

I later tried this recipe with raw chicken, I cooked it in the basket for about half hour and cooked everything together for another half hour.

Chicken wings fit better into the steam basket than chicken legs, but both work. Wings are handy in that you can buy a kilo for about the same price as 1/2 a kg of legs. Chop the top of the wing (that looks like a little drumstick) and pop it in the pot. Save the middle part for hors d’oeuvres and treat the cats to the tips.

This is the Pea and ham soup I made with Thermie this week. I used fresh peas as I have a lot of them doing nothing in my freezer. I found that cutting the ham chunkier helped too.
2 thick chunks of Ham off the bone
1 onion
2 carrots
Peas
Vegie stock and water
Chop onions and carrots in thermie speed 5ish add ham and sauté 10 mins.
Add the rest of the ingredients, make the water/stock go to the top mark. Varoma 1 hour, speed slow, reverse. Improve consistency by slowly turning the dial midway for about 10-20 seconds when the soup is cooked.