I'd like to share a recipe I found while browsing the net a few days ago. But since some of the ingredients for the recipe are not found the area where I am living, I just changed some of them to the local ingredients available and I'm quite surprised that it tastes good.The Original recipe is from Egypt but because I changed some of the ingredients, I will just simply call it as Spinach Soup. Here are the original ingredients and I will just enclosed the ones I changed and put what I used.
- 1 lb spinach (washed and with large stems removed)
- 1/3 cup basmati rice (we have basmati chose to use regular rice grains)
- 4 cups chicken stock
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 2 cups plain yogurt (no yogurt found in the ref, so I instead used soymilk)
- 1/4 teaspoon turmeric (I prefer the use of curry powder)
- 3-4 scallions, finely chopped (we call it spring or green onion here)
- salt and pepper, to taste
- (for a more personal touch, I added some asparagus into it)
Cooking it is really simple.
Using a large pre-heated saucepan, put the olive oil, heat it for a while and then saute the onion until it softens but not making it too brown. After that, add the turmeric (or curry powder in my case) and let it cook for about 1 more minute. This way the flavor of the spice is thoroughly released.
Add the chicken stock, rice, scallions, and salt and pepper to taste. Let it simmer gently for more or less 15 minutes or until the rice is cooked. Be careful not to overcooked it. Cut the spinach into long, thin strips and add it to the pan and wait for another 5 minutes for it to cook.
The soup is best served hot. In a separate bowl (or you can do it directly on the soup), beat the garlic and yogurt into it. To avoid the yogurt from curdling, heat the soup gently.
