Chicken soup

Sunday's chicken from Sainsbury's was completely demolished by Monday lunchtime and the carcase was sent for soup, along with some onions, celery and left over vegetables. Boiled up for a few hours then strained, in the usual way.

Added six ounces of orange lentils and brought back to the boil for a few minutes, then left to stand for the next day. Around 3 pints at this stage.

Around 16:30 the next day, brought back to the boil and simmered. Thicker than it looks in the snap above, despite having only just been stirred.

Chopped four smallish onions. One large clove of garlic. Half a dozen rashers of textured salt, aka bacon, from Tesco's. Another miracle of thin slicing and water retention. Started the garlic in a little butter. Added the textured salt and then, a little later, the onion. Simmered gently, lid on, for about twenty minutes.

Meantime, added the celery and some left over rice to the soup.

About five minutes from the off at 17:30, stirred the garlic and so on into the soup. In my case taken with some brown bread from batch No.696 made the day before. Rather good, although I say it myself. We did about two thirds in this first sitting.

For once there was neither potato nor cabbage.

Years ago, when we used more red lentils than we do now, one often found what looked like small dead flies floating at the top, a problem Tesco's customer services declined to explain. More recently, this has not been happening, so maybe, under the covers, the problem has been solved.

But there were a few yesterday, which I attempted, not very successfully, to capture with the Samsung, using a magnification of four. Ten just produced a blur. One of said flies can be seen above the large black blot in the snap above. Roughly triangular, isosceles with the head at the pointed end. Head right, wings left in the sketch below.

PS 1: we believe that stored grains and pulses are apt to carry or acquire infestations. It sometimes happens with pearl barley if one keeps it too long. Years ago, when we visited Ottawa, I had hoped to visit the large agricultural research operation there, with red lentils being a big crop in Ontario, to inquire, but I never made it.

PS 2: and while the big stores are in my thoughts, I might complain about some sliced beef that we bought from Sainsbury's recently. On the front of the packet it just said 'cooked and roasted', a slightly odd formulation, but one which did not ring any alarm bells. Then we tasted the stuff and found it had been well peppered up, in fact not very nice at all, evidence for which we found on the back of the packet, in small. Why on earth did Sainsbury's not make clear on the front of the packet that the stuff inside would be better described as peppered beef rather than roast beef? In any event, a far cry from the sort of cold roast beef that we get from our own roasts. Or, indeed, from the days when you used to be able to buy unadorned beef rolls from public houses.

References

Reference 1: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=flies+lentils. Dead flies from past times.