Background: Since the days of the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld I've always been interested in Mulligatawny Soup. I don't remember ever ordering this in an Indian restaurant, but I usually like all Indian food and I have an open mind. So when my friend Jocelyn (she runs the Jewish world in the D.C. area) sent me this recipe I thought I would give it a bash. "Try it first", she urged. "Naaah", I said, "I like all Indian food. I'm sure I love this". "Oh and I'm going to blog it", I said. She gave me a long suffering stare through email.
Well I made it. And unless blackwifeo is able to do something to save this, I clearly don't really like Mulligatawny Soup. For some reason it gets this "plefka" (that horrid film on the top of boiled milk or custard, I shiver just to think of it) on top as soon as you stop stirring, and it has a dry, lentily taste that needs help. But it's cool to make. And not hard.
Ingredients:
| 1/4 cup vegetable oil. | 3 cups chopped onions. |
| 5 chopped garlic cloves | 1 1/2 TBL garam masala |
| 1 1/2 tsp ground coriander | 1 tsp tumeric |
| 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper | 2 bay leaves |
| 2 cups dried red lentils | 8 cups low-salt chicken broth |
| 2 cups diced veggie chicken (tivol) | 1 cup canned unsweetened coconut milk |
| 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice | 2 cups cooked basmati rice | lemon wedges |
Directions:
Of course, I couldn't find garam masala anywhere in this area. I know you can get it in Tel Aviv, but there's a limit, so I made my own. Google has about a hundred different recipes, I used this one from Ochef. Now.
Heat the vegetable oil in a heavy large pot. Add the onions and cook until golden brown (15 mins). Add the garlic an saute for another 2 minutes. Now add the garam masala and the other 4 spices (coriander, tumeric, pepper and bay leaves and stir for no more than a minute. This is what my spices looked like:
Now you need to add the red lentils. Stir them well until they are completely coated. It looks nice:
Now add the chicken broth (I used chickenless, MSGless, Saltless power). Bring the soup to the boil and simmer for about 20 minutes until the lentils are very soft and mushy. Then fish out the bay leaves. Next you puree the soup. I used this hand blender, it works like a charm and I want to bend everything in sight. Here is what it looks like post blending:
Once it's blended stir in the fake (or real) chicken, the coconut milk and the the lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper.Serve over rice and garnish with lemon wedges (if you have, we don't).
Note: Once bwo gets home and fixes it, I will post her additions.
1 comment:
Hey P, I finally got to taste your Mulligatawny Soup. It's absolutely amazing. The next day after the flavors had mellowed and with an extra squeeze of lemon it was superb.
You did not do justice to that photo Peter, in fact, it tastes nothing like it looks. At least you could have garnished it with some cilantro and slices of lemon. With food, the visual is almost as important than taste. Men. Good recipe Jocelyn, unfortunately, Peter hates lentils.
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