Curried Tomato Soup

This particular recipe is adapted from Mark Bittman's Curried Carrot soup that appeared in his Bitten column in NYTimes. I am a huge fan of Mark Bittman, I love his show on PBS , his column Bitten in NYT and also his book "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian". And the book, it' s a bible..no - encyclopedia...oh well... I'll just say its one of the most resourceful books yet in my collection. I have never made a recipe exactly as given in his book but I have used them as a foundation to build my own version. And the result has always been wonderful... Speaking about Bittman, I cant wait to watch the show on PBS "Spain...On the Road Again". Looks like it will be a good show given that it has Mario Batali as well who is yet another of my fav TV chefs .....

Coming back to the soup...the great thing about this soup is that it is simple as well as light. Soup has become an integral part of our eating lifestyle. After a weekend of overloading the digestive system, Mondays are the perfect day to stick to a simple meal of hot soup. It doesn't take too long to cook a pot of soup and what better way to ease into the next few days of grinding work.

To make this soup really light go easy on the coconut milk. I have used half a can, which gives a good flavor without inducing a heaviness to the dish. But if you like the soup to be really heavy on the coconut flavor, go ahead and add a little more....

Ingredients:

3 tsp olive oil
1 small onion, roughly chopped
10-15 cherry tomatoes or 5-6 medium sized tomatoes
1 clove garlic
1" piece ginger, grated
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp cayenne pepper, or as required
1 cup vegetable stock or water
1/2 can coconut milk or even less if you prefer
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
Cilantro (optional)


Method:

1. Heat oil in a large pan, add cumin seeds, coriander seeds, diced chopped onions, garlic, ginger, cook until softened, about 5 minutes.
2. Add tomatoes, turmeric, salt and let it cook until tomatoes are well cooked.
3. Add cayenne pepper, stock and let it boil 10 min or so. Now add coconut milk.
4. Allow the mixture to cool and puree it in a blender or food processor. Adjust the consistency of the soup by adding more stock.
5. Boil the pureed soup for 5 more minutes, adjust salt and pepper as per taste.
6. Garnish with cilantro and serve.

Another version of this soup is to substitute the coconut milk with buttermilk. This version is a bit tangy but still yummy.

And this week's recipe is my entry to the "WYF:Salad/starter/soup" event hosted by EC of Simple Indian Food blog.

Happy Slurping :-)

Cracked Wheat Idli

A recent addition to my cook book collection is Dakshin: Vegetarian Cuisine from South India by Chandra Padmanabhan. It has some really good pictures and I can't resist a cookbook with pretty pictures :-) This book has a wonderful collection of South Indian recipes, most of them traditional but a few that were very new to me. I hope to try them in the near future and post them soon in my blog. Idli is a staple in most Tamil (as in Tamilnadu) homes and Ms. Padmanabhan dedicates a whole section of the book to idlis! I have been eyeing rava (semolina) idli for a long time having come across quite a few in the blog world. So I decided to make rava idli for dinner from the recipe in the book except that I substituted rava with cracked wheat and tweaked the recipe to suit our taste. I love the taste and texture of cracked wheat - not to mention the whole lot of goodness packed in it. These idlis turned out to be very soft and yummy.... Guess this will be added on to my oft-repeated-recipe collection. Bulgur is a good substitute too and for people who are wondering isnt bulgur and cracked wheat the same, do read this very interesting article.

Ingredients:
11/2 cups cracked wheat
1/2 cup rava
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 green chillies, finely chopped
1 tsp chopped/ground ginger
5-6 cashews halved or quartered (optional)
2 tsp chana dal
1 tsp split urad dal
2 tsp jeera
2 tsp mustard
1/2 tsp asafoetida
few curry leaves
Salt to taste
1 tsp coarse ground pepper
3 cups buttermilk or more if required
2 tsp oil

Method:

1. Mix cracked wheat, rava and soda together.
2. Heat oil in a pan, add chana dal, urad dal, cashew, jeera and mustard. When they crackle add chillies, ginger, asafoetida and curry leaves.
3. Remove from the stove and add this to the wheat/rava mixture.
4. Add buttermilk, salt, pepper and mix well until a smooth batter is obtained. Consistency should be similar to idli batter.
5. Grease idli plates and fill it with the batter. Steam for 10-15 min until a knife/toothpick inserted at the center of the idlis comes out clean.

I served the idlis with tomato korma though idili powder or chutney will work very well. I hope to post the recipe for tomato korma soon :-)

This will be my entry to Tasty Palettes "JFI - OCT '08 - Whole Grains".

And here is my first blog award presented by Easy Crafts of Simple Indian Food blog, yay :-) Thanks a lot Easy Crafts for the encouragement. I appreciate it. As per the rules of this award, you are to pass this award to at least 7 other blogs whose content/design you find brilliant. I am guilty of being a silent visitor sometime and I use this opportunity to let my blogger friends know how much I appreciate their work.

I present this award to:

Asha of Foodie's Hope
Manasi of A Cook at Heart
Srivalli of Cooking 4 all Seasons
Usha of Veg Inspirations
Kitchen Flavours
Meeta of Whats for Lunch Honey
Vaishali of Holy Cow