Mulligatawny Soup (Credit Crunch, part 2)

It’s a tradition for a lot of people in Germany to watch “Dinner For One” on New Year’s Eve. If you’ve never heard of it, here’s a link so that you can watch it: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9105942950207814319#.

The soup course in the play comprises Mulligatawny and my husband asked me yesterday if I could make it, because he’d never heard of it until Dinner For One.

I adapted  a recipe that I found under allrecipe.com. Next time I’ll substitute a tablespoon of my Thermomix curry powder for the spices in the original recipe. I didn’t have curry leaves, so I just left them out and the  soup still came out fine. A word about the tamarind: I added a little boiling water and pureed it in the TMX before adding it to the soup.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon oil (or ghee), 1 chopped onion, 4 cloves chopped garlic, 2 tsp finely chopped or grated fresh ginger, 2 green chili peppers (I used 1 tsp hot Hungarian paprika), 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/4 tsp ground cloves, 2 tsp ground coriander seed, 1 1/2 tsp ground cumin, 1 tsp ground turmeric, 4 cardomom pods, 1 tbsp chopped fresh curry leaves, 1 carrot peeled and chopped, 1 apple peeled and diced (I used pear), 1 cup red lentils rinsed and drained, 8 cups vegetable broth, 1 tbsp tamarind concentrate, 1 tbsp lemon juice, 2 cups (or one 400ml) coconut milk, 2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander, garam masala

What to do

1. Heat oil in a large pan, cook onion, garlic, ginger, chilies, spices and curry leaves. Stir until onion is lightly browned and mixture is fragrant.
2. Add carrot, apple, potato, dhal, and vegeta ble stock to pan; simmer, covered, for about 15 minutes or until vegetables are just tender (I brought the mixture up to the boil in the pressure cooker and cooked for 5 minutes under pressure). Discard cardamom pods and curry leaves.
3. Blend or process soup mixture, in batches, until pureed; return to pan. Add tamarind, lemon juice, coconut milk and fresh coriander leaves; stir until heated through.Season to taste with salt and garam masala.

I served the soup with a few slices of lemon floating on top.