Bozbash with quince
13 October 2025 10:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeSince I now have another batch of real quinces (after making japonica jelly last week) I made a recipe from my Russian cookery book -- technically speaking now a Soviet cookery book, I suppose, since it takes it for granted that you will be interested in recipes from all the now independent parts of the Soviet Union!
Azerbaijani bozbash bears a probably not coincidental resemblance to Persian cookery and to lamb plov, and is made, in the variant I used, with stewing lamb, chickpeas (or potato), quince, tomato, and dried or fresh fruit with fresh basil, parsley and coriander; I discovered I didn't have the dried apricots I thought I had, and used windfall pears and cooking apples, which meant that I had no need to add lemon juice at the end to achive the requisite sour/sweet flavour :-)
It was extremely good. It also provided a worthy cause in which to use up my single successful coriander plant, which was on the point of bursting into flower, and one of my pots of basil.
(Similar recipe online: https://bestrecipes24.com/recipe/azerbaijani-style-lamb-bozbash-soup-with-chickpeas )
"Little Gentlemen" is coming along quite nicely, although the style is in danger of becoming stilted and verbose -- not very Dumas!
I have now successfully introduced my young OC Venya (playing the 'Nat Blake' role, with Raoul taking on the role -- and vocabulary -- of the cheerful Tommy Bangs who introduces him to everyone and everything) into Athos's house, which is at least fifty per cent of the material envisaged, and am attempting to finish the scene in which Athos reads the accompanying letter (also establishing AU material). Everything else will end up going into a 'next morning' scene, probably; d'Artagnan needs to turn up and deliver his scheduled dialogue, and I think Porthos will probably remain off-page, although very much present in the AU, because it would be too much of a coincidence for them both to arrive unheralded on the same day. So I should probably end up with either a two-chapter story or a one-shot in two scenes, depending on how the length works out.
I'm getting about 250 words per page in this notebook (unsurprising as it is A5) and have written exactly nine pages so far, which would give me 2250 words for a first chapter; a perfectly decent length as it stands.
Azerbaijani bozbash bears a probably not coincidental resemblance to Persian cookery and to lamb plov, and is made, in the variant I used, with stewing lamb, chickpeas (or potato), quince, tomato, and dried or fresh fruit with fresh basil, parsley and coriander; I discovered I didn't have the dried apricots I thought I had, and used windfall pears and cooking apples, which meant that I had no need to add lemon juice at the end to achive the requisite sour/sweet flavour :-)
It was extremely good. It also provided a worthy cause in which to use up my single successful coriander plant, which was on the point of bursting into flower, and one of my pots of basil.
(Similar recipe online: https://bestrecipes24.com/recipe/azerbaijani-style-lamb-bozbash-soup-with-chickpeas )
"Little Gentlemen" is coming along quite nicely, although the style is in danger of becoming stilted and verbose -- not very Dumas!
I have now successfully introduced my young OC Venya (playing the 'Nat Blake' role, with Raoul taking on the role -- and vocabulary -- of the cheerful Tommy Bangs who introduces him to everyone and everything) into Athos's house, which is at least fifty per cent of the material envisaged, and am attempting to finish the scene in which Athos reads the accompanying letter (also establishing AU material). Everything else will end up going into a 'next morning' scene, probably; d'Artagnan needs to turn up and deliver his scheduled dialogue, and I think Porthos will probably remain off-page, although very much present in the AU, because it would be too much of a coincidence for them both to arrive unheralded on the same day. So I should probably end up with either a two-chapter story or a one-shot in two scenes, depending on how the length works out.
I'm getting about 250 words per page in this notebook (unsurprising as it is A5) and have written exactly nine pages so far, which would give me 2250 words for a first chapter; a perfectly decent length as it stands.