Taste of Home: Garbure

We enjoy trying out new dishes, and this time it’s Garbure, a French stew of chicken with cabbage and other vegetables.

Garbure

We love stew not only because it’s easy to make, filling and inexpensive; but it is also a great way to let our son eat a variety of vegetables. The stew is creamy and not too thick with beans, potatoes, leeks, and celery. Plus, this dish gets better with each successive reheating. It is so wholesome, delicious and aromatic.

While hearty Garbure is very common in Gascony, in the south-west of France, where the weather is cooler than in Cambodia, we still love eating it here. So what better dish to prepare than a Garbure, using our favorite Garbure recipe, which provides a whole amount of healthy protein, fiber, and nutrients along with it.

Certainly, Garbure is our new comfort for food.

Garbure

Ingredients good for 8 persons:

• 600 grams of chicken breast skinless, boneless, cut
• 2 balls of garlic, sliced
• 4 onions, sliced
• 2 carrots, sliced
• 5 ribbed stalks of celery, chopped
• 2 whole stalks of leeks, chopped
• 1 can white beans
• 1 whole cabbage, chopped
• 100 grams butter
• 4 bay leaves
• 2 teaspoons of thyme
• 2 teaspoons of parsley
• black pepper, to taste
• salt, to taste
• soy sauce, to taste
• 5 medium sized potatoes, peeled and chopped
• 2 cubes of chicken broth

Garbure

How to cook it:

1. In a big cooking pot, put 1 liter of water and chicken broth with parsley, bay leaves and thyme.
2. Add the garlic, onion, potatoes, carrots, celery, leeks, cabbage and white beans.
3. Let it boil until it is cooked. (if you let the dish boil long enough, the potatoes and beans will partially melt, making the stew creamy without needing to add cream or flour. This way the stew stays light)
4. In a separate frying pan, cook the chicken in butter and add black pepper.
5. When the chicken is ready add it to the vegetable mixture in the pot.
6. Add some soy sauce and salt.
7. Let it boil for ten extra minutes.
8. Share, serve and enjoy!

Myanmar: The World’s Largest Book at Kuthodaw Pagoda

Our last stop in our Myanmar tour was in Mandalay, the second largest city after Yangon. It’s a fairly young city (161 years old) with an intriguing history, founded on February 13, 1857 by King Mindon. So, here’s our most unique and best experience in the city: The visit to the world’s largest book at Kuthodaw Pagoda.

Hundreds of white stupas glistening in the sun

Some of the white stupas of the world’s largest book

Have you ever heard about it before? Personally, I never knew such a place existed.

The World’s Largest Book

Kuthodaw Pagoda, which contains the “World’s Largest Book”, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located at the foot of Mandalay Hill. It was built in 1857 by King Mindon. The monks started working for the World’s Largest Book on October 14, 1860, and the inscriptions on all the stones were completed and it was opened to the public on May 4, 1868.

The Kuthodaw Pagoda

the entrance to the world’s largest book

The World’s Largest Book contains 730 marble slabs – it means there are 730 leaves and 1460 pages. A page (one side of the slab) has approximately 80 to 100 lines of Buddhist inscriptions called Tripitaka, chiseled-out and originally filled in with gold ink. Each slab (1.53m tall) is housed in its own stupa. Literally, we saw endless rows of geometrically arranged small bright white shrines – symmetry at its finest!

A page of the world’s largest book

We leisurely strolled around the pagoda at around 4PM. We enjoyed the serenity of this splendid structure’s inner courtyard with many Buddha images and flowers. There was hardly anyone around so we virtually had the place to ourselves. We were fascinated while going around, learning the history of the place and seeing the unique architecture. Such an impressive site to see – it really speaks of the value and importance of the Buddha’s teachings for the people.

White stupas everywhere.

We liked it a lot, and certainly the best place of interest we visited in Mandalay. The World´s largest book is definitely worth to be seen and the whitewashed stupas make for great photos.

Fantastic and beautiful

Little Lilly travel tips:

• Highly recommended to ALL travelers.
• It’s close to Mandalay Hill so it’s convenient to visit this in the afternoon at around 4 pm because this Temple is next to Mandalay hill, a good place to watch for sunset at 5.30 pm.
• It’s a big area, so allow yourself to wander around for an hour.
• Dress modestly – no showing anything above the knees or shoulder parts.
• NO shoes and socks allowed, so bring wet tissues to wash your feet afterwards.
• NO camera fee.