Recipe: Chilled Turkish Yoghurt Soup with Braised Lamb
For Rebecca Alarcon, who cooks and assists with menu planning and ordering at The Richmond Arms Pub in Houston, international cuisine comes easily. She has catered and cooked for Cirque de Soleil, served as a personal chef for a family in Copenhagen, Denmark, and recently returned to where her culinary career began at The Richmond Arms Pub, a quaint British soccer pub that opens at 6 a.m. on weekends so fans can see all of their favorite teams in action.
She created her Chilled Turkish Yoghurt Soup with Braised Lamb to take advantage of her passion for yoghurt and unique flavor combinations: “I just really like yoghurt and wanted to try something really different and savory,” she said.
And it worked. Rebecca’s Honorable Mention dish combines a slow-cooked, herb-infused lamb shank with Middle Eastern flavors and a creamy Mountain High™ Yoghurt-based soup to bring together worldly and mouth-watering flavor combinations. “After marinating the lamb in yoghurt for 24 hours, it literally was like butter falling off the shank,” Rebecca said of her special sauce.
Encouraged to enter the Neighborhood to Nation Recipe Contest by her general manager, Rebecca started her culinary career as a waitress and bartender at The Richmond Arms a decade ago, before traveling, catering, cooking and graduating from culinary school.
“This place is like a second home to me,” Rebecca said. “It’s been open for 30 years and that says something when there’s 80,000 restaurants in Houston and growing. It’s a special place.” The Richmond Arms welcomes local and visiting soccer fans, highlighting the weekly sports schedule on its website. The pub also sponsors several local soccer and rugby teams and contributes to a local organization that helps provide funds for local kids who want to start playing soccer. Once a novice to soccer, Rebecca is now a dedicated fan, loyal to Arsenal FC.
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Address: 5920 Richmond Avenue, Houston, Texas Website: http://richmondarmsonline.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheRichmondArmsPub/