Provençal Easter Soup
Chickpeas for fertility, lemon for bitterness, green leaves for spring, egg for rebirth - a lesson in a bowl. An easy soup suitable for Green Thursday, the day when everyone’s busy clearing away the cobwebs and springcleaning the house before Good Friday.
Serves 6-8
Ingredients
350g chickpeas, soaked overnight in cold water
2 onions, finely chopped
2 carrots, scraped and finely chopped
2 sticks celery, chopped
Shb lemon zest
1-2 sprigs thyme and rosemary
1-2 bayleaves
4 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper
To finish
Yolks of 2 eggs beaten up with the juice of a lemon
2-3 handfuls spring greens, shredded: spinach, watercress or chickweed, sorrel, chervil, parsely
Method
1. Drain the chickpeas and put them in a pan with enough cold water to cover them to a depth of two fingers. Bring to the boil. Add the rest of the ingredients, reserving the salt. Bring all back to the boil, turn down the heat a little, lid loosely and leave to bubble very gently for about 2 hours. If you need to add water, make sure it’s boiling. Don’t add salt till the chickpeas are soft.
2. When the chickpeas are tender, whisk a ladleful of the hot broth into the egg-and-lemon mixture. Stir the shredded greens into the soup, return to the boil, and remove the pan from the heat.
3. Stir the egg-mixture into the soup, squishing the chickpeas down a bit. Do not reboil or the eggs will curdle and your lovely velvety thickening will separate. Serve with bread and grated cheese.
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Paskha
Russia's traditional Easter dessert - it gets its name from the Russian for Easter - is a creamy curd-cheese formed into a cake, sweetened and finished made with the first rich milkings of spring. In Russia they use a special wooden mould, very decorative, but a clean flower-pot lined with a square of muslin is fine. No cooking required, though it's best to start today to serve it tomorrow.
Serves 6-8
Ingredients
500g well-drained curd cheese
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
2 egg yolks and 1 white, whisked
50g butter, softened
100g castor sugar
150ml whipped cream
1 tablespoon candied peel, chopped
1 tablespoon blanched almonds, chopped
To decorate
blanched almonds, glace cherries and candied peel
raisins
Method
1. Beat the vanilla seeds into the curd cheese. Whisk the egg yolks with half the sugar until the mixture is white and light. Beat the butter with the rest of the sugar until fluffy.
2. Combine the egg and sugar with the butter and sugar, and beat in the curd cheese. Fold in the whipped cream and the whisked egg white. Fold in the candied peel and the almonds.
3. Tip the mixture into a square of clean cloth and pop it into a well-scrubbed flowerpot. Put it on an upturned saucer and leave it to drip overnight in the fridge.
4. The next day, unmould it onto a pretty plate and remove the muslin. Decorate with almonds, cherries and peel, using the raisins to prick out the initials XB, for Kristos voskryesye, 'Christ is risen'. Serve with a slice of brioche - the closest thing to the Russian babka, the special Easter cake which looks like a chef's hat.
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