Soup Sunday: Spicy lentil, potato and spinach

Gak! I'm being slack with posting Soup Sundays. After this one I still have two to post - plus I'm sure I'll have a new one this Sunday. Better get on to it!



This soup was made on one of those freezing cold evenings we've been having lately. I say this every year around this time - I can't wait until summer!

On this particular evening I felt like something spicy, filling, and it had to be vegetarian because I didn't have any meat around. Lentil soup seemed to fit the bill, and because I wanted something fairly quick to make I opted for red lentils.



It was another one of my "throw stuff in a pot" soups. In a dry pan, I gently toasted a teaspoon each of ground cumin, ground coriander, ground turmeric, chilli powder and cumin seeds for a few minutes until all nice and aromatic. Into a pot with a splash of oil went a diced onion, a couple of diced carrots and a couple of diced celery sticks. To that I added a cup of rinsed red lentils, a 400g can of tomatoes, a couple of peeled and diced potatoes and enough water to just cover everything. It simmered for 20 minutes and then I added four cubes of defrosted frozen spinach and seasoned it with salt and pepper and let it cook for another 5 minutes.

It wasn't bad for about 30 minutes worth of work and helped warm me up a little. I still can't wait until summer though!

Portuguese-style chicken curry, daal and cabbage slaw

I'm having difficulty with food blogging at the moment. It's not due to lack of time or energy. It isn't because I'm not eating well, or not cooking good food, or not photographing meals. My issue is with the whole stringing words into coherent sentences thing. It seems that food blogging involves more than just food, it also involves writing. I know! Who'd thought!

However, I am pushing through and making an effort!

The other week, I cooked a meal from a Indian cookbook I had received over Christmas. I made a chicken curry, a daal, and an interesting cabbage slaw that I'd never tried before.

The Portuguese-style chicken curry (aka mungh vindaloo) wasn't as spicy as it usually is in restaurants, although I did try to up the heat factor. Originally, vindaloo wasn't particularly spicy and the cookbook tells me that vindaloo actually means "vinegary". Other sources (internets!) say that vindaloo is a derivative of the Portuguese "vinho de alho" which literally means wine (vinho) and garlic (alho). Vindaloo was bought to Goa by the Portuguese and was traditionally cooked with pork. I used chicken drumsticks in my version. They took ages to cook, but were very succulent.

The daal was good, but a bit overshadowed by the vindaloo and the cabbage. My daal was quite soupy at first, but after standing for a while (I had to wait for the curry to finish cooking) it thickened up. I was rather heavy handed with the ginger!

But on to the cabbage. The cabbage slaw was a real surprise! The coconut gave it a lovely fragrance, and the cabbage was sweet, slightly nutty and spicy. If you like coconut (and cabbage) give it a try. It was very different from how I normally cook cabbage and we really enjoyed it.

Gujarati Cabbage Slaw

From Betty Crocker's Indian Home Cooking

Serves 6

1/4 cup peanut or vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon asafetida (hing)
1 cup dry-roasted unsalted peanuts, coarsely chopped
1 medium head green cabbage (1 1/2 pounds), finely shredded (8 cups)
1 cup shredded fresh coconut or 1/2 cup dried unsweetened shredded coconut
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh coriander
3 fresh Thai, serrano or cayenne chillies, finely chopped
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground tumeric
Juice of 1 medium lime (2 tablespoons)

Heat oil in wok or pan over medium-high heat. Add asafetida and peanuts; sizzle 30 seconds.

Add remaining ingredients except lime juice, stir fry about 5 minutes or until cabbage is hot; remove from heat. Stir in lime juice.



Moong daal

From Betty Crocker's Indian Home Cooking

Serves 6

1 cup dried whole green lentils (sabud mung), sorted, rinsed and drained
4 cups water
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1 tablespoon ghee or vegetable oil
1 teaspoon black or yellow mustard seed
1/4 teaspoon asafetida (hing) or garlic powder
1 tablespoon finely chopped ginger
1 medium tomato, finely chopped (3/4 cup)
2 fresh Thai, serrano or cayenne chillies, cut lengthwise in half
1 teaspoon salt

Place lentils, water and turmeric in a saucepan. Heat to boiling; reduce heat. Partially cover and simmer 30 to 35 minutes or until lentils are tender.

While lentils are simmering, heat ghee/oil and mustard seed in a a pan over medium-high heat. Once seed begins to pop, cover skillet and wait until popping stops.

Add asafetida and ginger to mustard seed; stir fry about 30 seconds or until ginger is partially brown. Add tomato and chillies, stir fry 3-5 minutes or until tomato is softened.

Stir tomato mixture and salt into lentils. Partially cover and simmer for 10 minutes.




Portuguese-style chicken curry / Mungh vindaloo

From Betty Crocker's Indian Home Cooking

Serves 4

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon coarsely chopped ginger
5 medium cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
3/4 cup tomato sauce (I think this is tomato puree, I used a can of whole tomatoes)
1 tablespoon coriander seed, ground
1 teaspoon cumin seed, ground
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut crosswise into 1/2 inch strips (I used drumsticks instead)
1/4 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup plain yoghurt

Heat in a pan over medium-high heat. Add onions, ginger and garlic; stir fry about 5 minutes or until onions and garlic are golden brown.

Stir in tomato sauce, ground coriander, ground cumin, salt, cayenne pepper and turmeric, reduce heat. Partially cover and simmer around 5 minutes or until a thin film of oil starts to form on surface of sauce. Remove from heat; cool 3 to 4 minutes.

Place sauce in blender (or use a stick blender). Cover and blend on medium speed until smooth. Return sauce to saucepan.

Stir chicken into sauce. Simmer uncovered 3 to 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until chicken is partially cooked.

Stir in vinegar and coconut milk. Simmer uncovered 5 to 7 minutes, stirring occasionally, until chicken is no longer pink in centre.

Beat yoghurt with wire whisk until smooth; stir into chicken mixture. Cook uncovered for 1 minute, stirring occasionally, just until yoghurt is warm. Serve with rice.

Sausage and lentil casserole

It is a good thing I have a large pantry. If I had to list items that one could always find in my pantry, we would be here for quite a while.

But despite the fact that my pantry is chockablock, once I started cooking lentils, I knew that here was an item that I would always have in stock. It's safe to say that I am quite fond of the humble lentil.

However, that fondness does have a line. The week I made this casserole, I was eating lentils for FOUR DAYS afterwards. And while they tasted even better the day after, as they had soaked up all the flavour from the sausages, four days is a bit much. Therefore, the recipe below is the recipe I should have cooked. The original had 2 cups of lentils, which is just insane. Unless you enjoy eating lentils for four days in a row.

I think this was adapted from a recipe on taste.com.au.

Ingredients (serves 4)

1 tablespoon olive oil
8 beef sausages
1 large brown onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 cup dried brown lentils, rinsed
2 dried bay leaves
3 cups chicken stock (or enough to cover)
Can of tomatoes
1/2 cup flat-leaf parsley leaves, chopped
Small bunch of dutch carrots

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Heat oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Cook sausages, turning, for 5 minutes or until browned. Remove to an ovenproof casserole dish. Wash the dutch carrots and chop off the tops. Place them into the casserole dish with the sausages.
2. Add onion, and garlic to pan. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until soft. Add lentils. Stir to coat in onion mixture. Add bay leaves and stock. Bring to the boil. Pour lentil mixture over sausages. Cover and cook for 1 hour.
3. Add tomatoes to casserole. Cover. Cook for 30 minutes or until lentils are tender. Remove from oven. Discard bay leaves. Stir in parsley. Season with salt and pepper. Serve.

Carrot & Lentil soup

This soup was a failed attempt to make pumpkin soup. I started the soup off by sweating some onions and garlic, only to cut into my pumpkin and find that it was rotten! I had bought it a couple of weeks earlier and it had been sitting on my bench too long. Gak.

Damn! I had been looking forward to a big bowl of soup and had even bought some nice bread especially for it. Then I remembered a recipe I had seen in the Women's Weekly Great Vegetarian Food cookbook that I had borrowed from the library. I had noted this recipe because I'm always looking for new ways to cook lentils (which I love).

On to Plan B: I salvaged my onions and garlic and turned them into this carrot and lentil soup instead. I didn't have any celery or buttermilk so I left them out. Nor did I put in a full kilo of carrots. The next time I make it I'll make sure I put in more than a kilo of carrots for a more intense carrot flavour as mine didn't taste very carroty. So, one rotten pumpkin and almost a kilo of carrots later, I had this beautiful looking soup. Here's the recipe:

From the Women's Weekly Great Vegetarian Food cookbook.

Ingredients:
1.125 litres (4 & 1/2 cups) vegetable stock
2 large brown onions (400g), chopped finely
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon ground cumin
6 large carrots (1 kg), chopped coarsely
2 trimmbed sticks celery (150 g), chopped coarsely
2 cup (500 ml) water
1/2 cup (1oog) brown lentils
1/2 cup (125ml) buttermilk

1: Heat 1/2 cup stock in large saucepan; cook onion, half of the garlic and cumin, stirring, until onion softens. Add carrot and celery; cook, stirring, 5 minutes.

2: Add remaining stock and the water; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, about 20 minutes or until carrot softens.

3: Blend or process soup, in batches, until smooth; return soup to pan. Add lentils; simmer, uncovered, about 20 minutes or until lentils are tender.

4: Stir buttermilk into hot soup and serve.