I made mulligatawny

Yo everybody. I made this a looong time ago. We're talking back in October. It was DELISH, and I think I'm going to make it again soon. But it wasn't what I had in mind when I started out. After doing a little research I learned that the bright red, tomato based Indian soup I was thinking of is often called mulligatawny but is actually Rasam. That will have to be my next project, as I continue to pursue my goal of making every variety of lentil soup known to man.

I followed the recipe pretty exactly, except I had to substitute some of the harder to find ingredients. I couldn't find tamarind concentrate, so I added extra lemon juice because I think tamarind would add a kind of fruity bitterness? I used ground cardamom instead of the pods, and dried coriander instead of fresh leaves. Next time I'll have to go stock up at an Indian grocery store because I bet all those ingredients do make a big difference. But even with the substitutes, this soup had such a complex flavor! All those spices (as pictured above)! And you even through some apple in there--who would have guessed?



Mulligatawny
from Michelle Chen, author of the recipe: "Literally meaning pepper water, Mulligatawny Soup is an Anglo-Indian invention created by servants for the English Raj who demanded a soup course from a cuisine that had never produced one."

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon ghee (clarified butter), or vegetable oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
• 2 green chile peppers, chopped
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander seed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 4 pods cardamom, bruised
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh curry
• 1 carrot, chopped
• 1 apple - peeled, cored, and chopped
• 1 large potato, peeled and diced
• 1 cup Masoor dhal (red lentils), rinsed, drained
• 8 cups chicken broth (I used No-Chicken broth)
  
• 1 tablespoon tamarind concentrate
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 2 cups coconut milk
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

Directions

1. Heat ghee or vegetable oil in large pan (use low heat); cook onion, garlic, ginger, chilies, spices and curry leaves, stirring, until onion is browned lightly and mixture is fragrant. Do not over brown the onion or else it will give the soup a burnt taste.
2. Add carrot, apple, potato, dhal, and chicken stock to pan; simmer, covered, for about 15 minutes or until vegetables are just tender. Discard cardamom pods and curry leaves.
3. Blend or process soup mixture, in batches, until pureed; return to pan. (I used an immersion blender, which worked just as well.) Add tamarind, lemon juice, coconut milk and fresh coriander leaves; stir until heated through.

I made your basic butternut squash, sweet potato+carrot soup

There are about a billion recipes out there for butternut squash soup, so I am not quite sure what struck me about this one, as I was Googling recipes a few weeks ago, except maybe for the fact that it contained coconut milk. (I love coconut milk so much. I love everything coconut actually. Coconut water, coconut sorbet, coconut-scented SOAP - I love it all.)

OH - another thing that I found appealing about this recipe was that it did not involve roasting anything. Roasting vegetables makes them taste really good, but it takes so much time, and I was hungry. So this recipe won over some of the other recipes that I saw which instructed me to roast squash for an hour or two.

I modified the recipe I found a bit, and here is what I came up with:

Ingredients:
1 medium onion, chopped
2 or 3 garlic cloves, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 sweet potato, peeled and chopped
1 medium butternut squash, peeled and cut in large cubes
1 liter vegetable or chicken broth
1 large can of coconut milk (you don't necessarily need the whole can)
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
cinnamon to taste
cayenne pepper to taste
dash of maple syrup

GARNISH IDEAS:
pumpkin seeds
pita chips/bread crumbs/crackers
avocado cubes
BACON**
PRETTY MUCH ANYTHING

Heat some olive oil in a large pan, add the onion and garlic and braise until soft. Add butternut squash, carrots and sweet potato and sautée for about 2-3 minutes.
Then add the stock and bring to a boil.
Reduce the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes until veggies are soft.
Then add some of the coconut milk and mix with a handheld mixer until you get a very smooth soup. Add more coconut milk if desired. Season with some salt and freshly ground pepper, cinnamon and cayenne to taste.

This made enough soup for about 5-6 servings. I tried allll the garnishes mentioned above, at different times. The soup is so smooth, so its nice to have some chunks of of other stuff in there to keep things interesting.


**Especially delicious.