La Entropista

I knew it was just a matter of time, with all the travelling and jet lag and too much Uno, but I now have a raging bladder infection. I tried to deny it for days, but today I am capitulating to the achey misery of it and am spending half my rainy afternoon in the bathroom and the other half on the couch practicing moaning. Tomorrow I go to Franz Josef Apoteke and get myself some of that herbal remedy that we can’t get in the States. Unfortunately one can only take it twice a year (last time was in November), but I have no other choice as antibiotics in foreign lands are not covered by my insurance and I haven’t found cranberry things around here. In the meantime I’m going to make “Meßmer „Momente des Glücks,“ overdose myself with vitamin C and watch Se7en.

On another similarly rainy day, I made soup. Inspired by the relentlessly hot dal soup with chicken and rice at Sangam, I attempted my own:

I sweated the onions and garlic in butter tempered with olive oil, and toasted the spices (coriander, yellow mustard, ginger, cumin, cinnamon, citrus flakes). Added half the finely chopped hot chili and ginger and sauteed some more.

Added the chicken broth, bay leaves, s&p, lentils, chopped tomato, diced potato and carrot, and let it all simmer until the dal disintegrates into its mushy goodness, skimming off the froth as it begins to boil. After about 20 min or so, added diced raw chicken breast fillets and a handful of basmati, the rest of the garlic, chili and fresh ginger. Simmered some more.

Adjusted spices, then served with freshly chopped cilantro and a generous squeeze of lemon.

I think it was important to add the garlic/ginger/chili at two seperate stages to give both depth and brightness to the soup, as was adding the cilantro and lemon at the end as a counterpoint to the earthiness of the dal and cinnamon/mustard/cumin toasted spice mixture. It would have been great with a beer.