Chickpea and Lentil Mulligatawny with Spicy Yoghurt

It's always exciting getting a new soup cookbook. I have so many soup books that sometimes I can find a "new" book on my own shelf....

I don't remember buying this book, but recently I decided to use it for the first time. It has lots of great sounding soups- some classics, some tweaked versions of favourites, some quite novel. Lebanese lentil soup. Roasted sweet potato bisque with avocado and lime salsa. Persian minted onion soup. Beetroot gazpacho with avocado cream.

For my first foray I chose Chickpea and Lentil Mulligatawny with Spicy Yoghurt. I've adapted it a bit.

25gm unsalted butter
1 onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
1/4 tsp ground turmeric
125gm chickpeas, soaked in water overnight and then drained
2 tblsp prepared curry paste
1 tblsp gram (chickpea) flour
1 L chicken stock
125gm puy lentils
1 tblsp mango chutney
1 granny smith apple, peeled, cored and chopped
400ml can light coconut milk
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Cumin yoghurt
1tsp ground cumin
1 small pot of Greek yoghurt

Melt the butter in a large saucepan, add the onion, garlic and turmeric, cook over a low heat until softened. Add the soaked chickpeas and curry paste and cook for 5 minutes, then sprinkle over the chickpea flour and stir it in. Pour on the stock and bring it to the boil, then simmer for 2 hours topping up with more liquid if it begins to get too dry.

Stir in the lentils and simmer for 30-40 minutes, then add the mango chutney and apple and cook for another 20 minutes.

For the cumin yoghurt, stir the cumin and yoghurt until combined.

Pour the soup into a blender/thermomix, blitz until it is a smooth puree. Return to the pan, add the coconut milk, and reheat. Season to taste. Serve topped with cumin yoghurt.

Notes
Always beware of recipes that aren't photographed in books that have a photo accompanying each recipe. They are usually an unappealing colour.  Especially if the chosen picture is of an ingredient that isn't even in the recipe.

I omitted 1 tsp dried red chilli flakes. The original recipe also included two smoked chicken breasts to be served shredded on top. I never bothered with that.

I used a yellow curry paste.

You can just blitz a few unsoaked chickpeas in a thermomix or fast blender to make the chickpea flour. And then use leftover chickpea flour on parboiled potatoes before roasting them- crispiest roast spuds ever!

Pea, mint and pine nut soup

While pea and ham soup isn't one of my great favourites,  I do love a fresh pea soup. This intriguing twist caught my eye recently. It was delicious, and so simple.

Pea, mint and pine nut soup

1 tblsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 stick celery, chopped
1 leek, washed and sliced into rings
1 L chicken or vegetable stock
600gm fresh or frozen peas
2 tblsp chopped mint
2 tblsp pine nuts

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat, add onion, celery and leek and cook, stirring, for 5-7 minutes until vegetable are soft but not coloured. Add stock, peas and three quarters of the mint and simmer for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, toast pine nuts by tossing in a frying pan until golden. Roughly chop nuts and combine with remaining mint leaves.

Remove soup from heat. Puree until smooth. Season, return to heat and serve hot, sprinkled with pine nuts and mint.

Serves 4
David Herbert
The Weekend Australian Magazine
31/3/12

Note
I actually cooked mine in the Thermomix, I'm sure it would be just as easy, and just as wonderful on the stovetop.

Green Tea and Broccoli Soup

I love how international recipes can be now. This recipe came to me via a French magazine and a Lebanese-American blog! Now it comes to you via an Australian soup blog. It is certainly the modern way to pass a recipe about. I immediately knew that I would have to try this when I saw it on Taste of Beirut a few weeks ago.

This soup was a bit experimental for me, particularly the novel use of green tea as stock. I'm not the biggest tea drinker. I do like green tea at Thai restaurants, but have had trouble replicating that success at home. I have a cupboard full of different brands that I've tried, and then not really liked. I thought it would make a perfect antidote to hot cross buns and Easter chocolates. A nice antioxidant boost to counteract the recent badness somewhat.

I modified the recipe to cook it all in my Thermomix. It's easy to adapt back to stove top if you don't have such expensive toys.

Green Tea and Broccoli Soup

1 large brown onion
2 cloves garlic
20gm olive oil
4 Japanese green tea bags
1 litre (4 cups) boiling water
600gm fresh broccoli (1 large and 1 medium head of broccoli)
1/2 bunch coriander (cilantro)
Sea salt, freshly ground white pepper to taste


Peel onion and garlic. Chop onion into quarters. Place into Thermomix. Chop on Speed 7 for 5 seconds.

Add oil.

Cook onion and garlic at 100 degrees on Speed 1 for 3 minutes.

Steep green tea bags in boiling water for a few minutes. Remove tea bags.

Add lightly chopped broccoli. Chop on Speed 7 for a few seconds.

Add the hot green tea.

Cook for 14 minutes at 100 degrees on Speed 1 or until broccoli is cooked.

Add coriander. Season. Blitz until smooth.

Notes
Coriander is the major flavour- which is a great thing for me, as I really love coriander, and don't love broccoli all that much.

I enjoyed this for a few work lunches, and then had the last of it for dinner with a toasted chicken sandwich. It was tasty.

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking, a fabulous weekly meme at Beth Fish Reads.