Diary Recipes

There was a special offer on the veggies at the supermarket last week and parsnips featured in the offer so I ended up with a couple of packs of parsnips and decided to make a curried parsnip soup.

600g Parsnips peeled and chopped 

1 onion, peeled and chopped

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1tbsp Pataks Jalfrezi curry paste

1 litre vegetable stock

salt & pepper

250ml milk or cream

chopped parsley

Heat the oil in a large saucepan or pressure cooker, add the choppped onion and cook gently until transparent.  Add the curry paste and cook for about a minute, add the parsnips and cook in the oil and curry paste for about 5 minutes until coated and slightly browned.

Add the vegetable stock and seasoning and cook until the parsnips are soft.

Let the soup cool slightly, either liquidise or use a stick blender to puree the soup.  Add the milk or cream and adjust the seasoning to taste. 

Serve sprinkled with parsley.

Here is the recipe for the BEST Tomato Soup I’ve ever had:

(Forewarning: this soup is a little time-consuming, but oh-so-worth it!)

Cream of Tomato Basil Soup
2 (28 oz) cans of whole tomatoes (reserve juice)

2 TB brown sugar

4 TB butter

1 small onion chopped

2 TB tomato pas

t2-3 TB flour

2 (15 oz) cans or one carton of chicken stock/broth

2 fresh red peppers roasted

*1 cup prepared pesto

1 1/2 cups half and half (low fat or fat free substitutes fine)

*Note: to roast peppers, cut them in half, clean out the seeds, and place them skin side up on a broiler pan. Broil them for about 20-25 minutes or until you notice the majority of the skin turning black. Don’t be alarmed, they’re not burned! Remove from oven and let cool. When cool enough to handle, peel off the black skins, and cut in large chunks. DO NOT skip the red peppers, they’re the secret ingredient!

Heat oven to 450 degrees. Line baking sheet with foil. Squeeze the seeds out of tomatoes and discard. Arrange the tomatoes on a baking sheet and sprinkle them with brown sugar. Bake until liquid is evaporated and tomatoes caramelize (about 30 min).

Heat butter, onion, and tomato paste in large pot. Saute until onions soften. Add flour and cook for 1 minute. Gradually add chicken stock and reserved tomato juice. Bring to a boil. Add tomatoes and peppers and puree until smooth with an immersion blender, or remove from pot in small batches and puree in a food processor or blender. Return to pot, simmer 15 minutes. Five minutes before serving, add pesto and half and half.

The roasted red peppers add a delicious crisp texture to the soup and will have people begging for the recipe. It’s pretty much a gimme you’ll never go back to canned tomato soup again!

amanda- found recipe here- see more pictures of this delicious meal

The original Mulligatawny Soup can be traced back to the early days of the East India Company in Madras to around the 18th century. It was originally a soup made with chicken or mutton/lamb stock. Mulligatawny Soup had no history in India before the British Raj. Supposedly, it was simply an invention to satisfy the Britishers, who demanded a soup course for dinner from a cuisine that had never produced one till then. The Tamil servants in those days concocted a stew like dish, that contained pepper and water on the lines of their local “Rasam” or “Melligu –Thanir. It was an interesting mix of East meets West, and was the nearest thing to soup in the cuisine of Colonial India. Mulligatawny Soup was actually the anglicized version of the Tamil “Melligu -Thani”. (“Melligu” meaning pepper and “Thanir” meaning water). As the name suggests it was originally just pepper in a watery soup.

In course of time a lot of other ingredients such meat, chicken, coconut, turmeric and other spices were added to give it a completely different flavour. A variety of “Mulligatawnies”, then came into existence which quickly became popular throughout the Common Wealth. Recipes for mulligatawny were quickly brought back to England by the British and its popularity spread through out the country. It has made a lasting impression on British cuisine right down to the present day, though it has undergone many changes. It is still an excellent “Comfort” dish on a cold rainy day and will surely lift the spirits when one is down in the dumps.
Mulligatawny Soup is now firmly entrenched not just in cookbooks but history books as well as a thick, spicy meat soup which is a wholesome meal in itself served with bread or rice. It has remained popular in the United Kingdom and is now available even in cans in some stores. The Mulligatawny Soup of today bears little resemblance to the original “MELLIGU -THANI”. And despite the name, pepper itself is not an important ingredient in the dish.
Though purported to be a classic Anglo-Indian dish since it came into existence during the Colonial Era, and was very popular then, Mulligatawny is not a typical Anglo-Indian dish. The real dish we Anglo-Indians call "Pepper water" is actually closer to the Tamil Rasam than Mulligatawny. Mulligatawny ultimately culminated into our very own Breast Bone pepperwater and various other variations such Shrimp Pepperwater, Dal Pepperwater, Horsegram pepperwater, etc.
Here’s a recipe for Chicken Mulligatwany Soup. Enjoy!!!!!!!
CHICKEN MULLIGATAWNY SOUP
Serves 6 Preparation time 45 minutes
½ kg chicken chopped into medium size pieces
1-teaspoon chilly powder 2-teaspoons pepper powder
1-teaspoon cumin powder 1-teaspoon coriander powder
1-teaspoon crushed garlic 2 big onions sliced
1 cup coconut paste or coconut milk Salt to taste
2 cloves 2 small pieces cinnamon
2 cardamoms 1 tablespoon oil or butter
Cook the chicken and all the ingredients with 6 to 8 cups of water in a large vessel on high heat till it reaches boiling point. Lower the heat and simmer for at least one hour till the soup is nice and thick. Garnish with mint leaves. Serve with bread or rice.
(Mutton or Lamb could be substituted for chicken)

It's still soup weather here in northern New Mexico, so certain individuals lugged out their Crock Pot this week and pondered the gentle, slow art of vegetarian potage. This new soup recipe is fresh tasting and full of flavor, kicked up with spicy green chiles a generous squeeze of lime.