Natural Diet Meal: Legs Soup and Pancakes

This is a somewhat western adaptation of a meal that is often found in Yemen and Africa.

When getting into the everyday details of the natural diet, instead of individual recipes, I prefer to suggest meals. In many if not most cases, it's much more economical and less wasteful to think of cooking in this way. You also get a better idea of how to time things. So here's the recipes and plan involved with making a meal of legs soup and pancakes.

I was told by a Yemenite friend that the way to show a man that you truly love him is to make him lahuh. Lahuh is a kind of pancake or flatbread that is made in various ways throughout Yemen and Africa. Since it's hard to find teff or sorghum flour for a reasonable price, I make mine with a combination of white wheat and oat flours.

 For the pancakes for 2 or 3 people, you will need:

• 2 cups of oat flour
• 1 cup of all purpose white flour
• 1 tablespoon of active dry yeast
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed gray salt
• 1 tablespoon honey or silan (date syrup)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground fenugreek
• around 3-4 cups of lukewarm water
• olive oil, palm oil, or schmaltz

Instructions:

1. Proof the yeast in 1 cup of the warm water.
2. When the yeast starts to foam, in a separare bowl, mix the honey, salt, fenugreek, and another 1 cup of water.
3. Sift the flours into a large bowl.
4. Mix the yeast water and the honeyed water together.
5. Then begin stirring them into the  flour.
6. Stir in more water until you have a thick but pourable batter, then stop.  Do not over-mix.
7. Cover loosely, and leave it in the refrigerator to rise until it's doubled.  Meanwhile, you can work on the soup.  You'll start frying the pancakes when there's about a half hour left before the soup is done.
8. When it's time, heat a frying pan on medium heat, and pour in about a tablespoon of oil.
9. Pour in enough batter to almost cover the bottom of the pan, and cover the pan with its lid.
10. When the bottom is browned, turn the pancake over to cook the other side.
11. When that side is done, transfer it to a plate, and cover it with a lint free cloth.

Serve these with the soup, and any leftovers (which there probably won't be) for breakfast the next morning with syrup, honey, or halvah spread.

You can adjust these instructions, if you prefer to use a sourdough method.  What you want is a kind of barely ladle-able batter.

Ingredients:

• 3 chicken leg quarters (a leg and a thigh for each person)
• 3 potatoes cut into quarters
• 1 large onion
• 1 clove of garlic
• a few leaves of fresh parsley
• 1 teaspoon gray salt
• 1/8 cup cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon hawaj spice mix
• 1/2 teaspoon ground fenugreek
• a good pinch of hot paprika
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tablespoon olive oil, palm oil, or schmaltz
• 1+1/2 liters of water

Instructions:

1. Scrub and cut the potatoes, and soak them in plain water.
2. In a pot, heat the oil on high heat, and sear the chicken leg quarters until they're barely browned a bit on both sides.
3. Sweat the onions in the pot with the chicken.
4. When the onions are just about clear, add the garlic and parsley.
5. Pour in the water and then add the rest of the ingredients.
6. Cover it, and turn up the heat to high until it is boiling.
7. Once it's boiling well, turn the heat down to low, and let it simmer for 2 hours.
8. When it's done, take out the bay leaf.

When it's about half an hour from being done, start on your pancakes.

Each person should get 1 leg quarter and a potato in their bowl of soup, and a pancake to dip or eat on the side. Many people break up the pancakes and put it in the soup.

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