Chicken, rice and caraway soup (Asian-style)

This was a more unusual soup, but quite delicious. The caraway taste was pretty strong, the onions, ginger and spice paste that was fried on the bottom of the pot slowly infused everything and each serving bowl was topped with almond flakes. The yum was almost overwhelming, especially for a spice junkie like me.
The recipe was adapted from Radu Popovici and all credits for the loveliness should go to him. :)

Last year: Farfalle with cheddar cream, green apple and red onion.
Two years ago: German mustard cream pork chops and Apple and leeks winter salad (German).



Ingredients (serves 4-5):

• 600 g chicken breast
• 1,5 liters chicken stock
• 4 cm piece of ginger
• 200 g yellow onions
• 1 garlic head
• 4 tablespoons caraway seeds
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 tablespoon sweet paprika
• 4-5 tablespoons peanut oil (or rice oil)
• salt and pepper
• 1 tablespoon of almond flakes and 1 tablespoon cream for each serving

Prepare the spices, onion and ginger (sorry for the over-exposed pic):

Make a paste from the onion, garlic, ginger and 1 tablespoon of oil in a blender. In a small frying pan fry the cumin, coriander and caraway without oil. Stir once in a while to prevent burning. In another frying pan use the rest of the oil to fry the chicken, cut into cubes and seasoned with salt and pepper:

After the chicken is fried on all sides, put it aside. In a soup pot put the onion-garlic-ginger paste and fry it on low heat for 3-4 minutes, stirring constantly.

Then add the spice mix which you previously dry-fried and mix well. Keep frying for 2-3 more minutes. Add the rice and mix again. Fry for 3 minutes more until all the rice is imbued with the spicy paste. Add the meat and all its juices and mix again. After 2-3 minutes add the stock. Season with more salt and pepper if necessary. Put a lid on the pot and boil for about 15 minutes until the rice is boiled.
Meanwhile gently fry (without oil) the almond flakes. When the soup is done transfer it into serving bowls, add cream and some almond flakes and dig in! :)