Tag Archives: coriander

Spicy Tomato Cashew Soup

Let’s put it this way: when I saw this post on Joanne’s blog, I knew I had to make the tomato soup she was talking about. I commented saying something like “looks delicious” and “can’t wait to make it”–but it was no mere blogger small talk. I actually couldn’t wait. I went to the grocery store that very day on my way home from work, picked up the ingredients I needed, walked in the door of my apartment, turned on the oven, and immediately started roasting those tomatoes.

I’ve never had such a fast recipe-to-table turnaround. I don’t know what about this soup (as opposed to all the other recipes I drool over on the internet) compelled me to make it so quickly, but guys–it’s truly amazing.

I’m thinking of writing “Call of the Tomato Soup”–kind of like “Call of the Wild” except . . . more different. With less stuff about wolves and more stuff about food.

This, my friends, is no traditional tomato soup. The Indian spices make it interesting and very flavorful, without detracting from its naturally comforting qualities. As long as you’re okay with a little spice (nothing unpleasant–just a delightful glow-in-your-mouth kind of level), I say make it! And fast. It’s a very low-effort meal with little hands-on time, and it’s also a great twist on what I’m sure for many of us was a childhood favorite.

Ingredients

(Serves 4)

1 ½ lb Roma tomatoes
2 tsp olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
½ large red onion
6 cloves garlic
2 tsp minced ginger
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp chipotle chili powder
1/3 cup salted cashews
1 TBS tomato paste
1 cinnamon stick (1’’ in length)
1 cardamom pod, bruised
4 cups water
1/3 cup Greek yogurt
Optional: extra cashews and cilantro, to garnish

Here are the ingredients.

Except that I was in a hurry to get this soup moving, and in my frenzy I confused it with another recipe I was planning on making, and a few interlopers snuck in.

I x-ed them out for you. No hot pepper. No shallots. Those belong in the Tarka Dhal recipe I shared recently–also Indian, hence my confusion. While I’m giving orders out, I might as well order you to make that too, because it’s fab. Just fab, girlfriend. (Sorry, just channeling a little Beth Moore there)

Preheat the oven to 300 F. Line a baking tray with aluminum foil. Halve the tomatoes lengthwise . . .

. . . toss them with 1 tsp olive oil, sprinkle them with salt and pepper . . .

and place them cut side up on the baking sheet.

Roast the tomatoes for at least 1 hour, but longer if you have time. Use this hour to head down to your local beach and do a quick photo shoot with a beautiful Pilates instructor/dancer named Amie.* When you come back, the tomatoes will be roasted and also cool enough to handle. Remove and discard the skins.

*If you don’t have a beautiful Pilates instructor/dancer named Amie available to photograph, I make no guarantees. None at all. The batch of soup will probably be ruined, destruction and gnashing of teeth will ensue, etc. etc. I apologize for any inconvenience.

Chop the red onion (roughly, since it’s all going to get pureed anyway), and heat the remaining teaspoon of oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. When hot, add the red onion. Cook for 6-7 minutes, stirring frequently, until golden-brown.

While it’s cooking, mince the garlic and ginger.

Measure out the garam masala, coriander, and chili powder, because the spices are about to go in.

Add the ginger, garlic, spices, cashews, and tomato paste to the red onion.

Cook for a couple minutes, stirring constantly (to avoid burning the spices), until very fragrant.

Add the water . . .

. . . as well as the cinnamon stick and cardamom pod . . .

. . . and those lovely roasted tomato halves.

Scrape the bottom of the pot to release the brown bits.

Bring the soup to a boil, then lower the heat to medium and simmer for 30 minutes. Once that half hour is up, remove the cinnamon stick and cardamom pod, and blend the soup using an immersion blender.

Temper the yoghurt with a little hot liquid from the soup . . .

. . . then stir it into the soup.

Things are looking and smelling unbelievably good.

Taste the soup and season to taste with salt and pepper. You can garnish with extra cashews or a bit of cilantro if you’d like. I served it with some freshly baked Parmesan tortilla wedges.

Next time I plan on serving it with grilled cheese–maybe amped up grilled cheese with some melty slabs of Pepper Jack inside.

Or I might just use a nice mild cheese to counteract the spice of the soup.

In any case, what a total comfort food.

Hope you guys enjoy it as much as I did! Another awesome soup coming up next week.

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Goan Chicken Curry

This lovely number is from one of my first cookbooks, garnered from that sale table at Borders so many years ago: the ‘Best-Ever Curry Cookbook’ by Mridula Baljekar.

The region of Goa is known for its coconut, and since I don’t think most people associate coconut flavors with Indian cooking (I certainly didn’t), I think this will come as a delightful surprise.

Unless you’re a rebellious coconut hater.

And unless you’re against dishes that look like a pile of schmushy brown sludge.

But tasty does not always equal photogenic–right?

Ingredients

(Serves 5)

1 ½ cups desiccated (dry, unsweetened, shredded) coconut
3 TBS water
2 TBS vegetable oil
½ tsp cumin seeds
8 black peppercorns
1 TBS fennel seeds
1 TBS coriander seeds
2 large onions
½ tsp salt (more to taste)
2 ½ lbs chicken thighs, or 8 small chicken pieces
Fresh cilantro
2 lemons, to serve

Soak the coconut in the 3 tablespoons of water for 15 minutes.

And by ‘soak’ I mean . . . well, more like ‘moisten.’ But I was trying to avoid that word. But then I went and said it anyway. Oh well.

Chop up the onion nice and fine:

Heat 1 TBS oil in a large pot or wok and fry the cumin seeds, peppercorns, fennel, and coriander seeds over low heat for 3-4 minutes (until they start spluttering).

The smells during these few minutes are to die for. “Hmmm, what smells like pizza?” my husband inquired happily, wandering into the kitchen. It’s those fennel seeds. They do it every time. One sausage pizza, not coming up.

Since I didn’t have coriander or cumin seeds (just the powdered kind) I added them along with the onion so as not to burn them.

Add the onions to the spices.

You’ll notice that at this point, the sun was slanting through our solitary, grated kitchen window. We only get about 10 minutes of natural light in there per day, and the light just so happened to invade right when I was trying to photograph the curry. That’s why these shots are a little whacko. Whacko exposure, whacko shadows, whacko whacko whacko.

But back to the curry! Which is not at all whacko.

Fry the onions for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they’re softened and become opaque.

Add the moistened coconut and salt, and keep frying for about 5 minutes, stirring.

I love coconut in all forms, but especially in a good curry.

And now! Put the entire onion/coconut mixture in a food processor and process until it forms a rough paste.

Why oh why didn’t I just get out my food processor from Aunt Jacquie? It was a battle extraordinaire to get the onions and coconut to finally resemble this:

I had to take a small break to cool down at this point, because I had worked up a mighty, mighty sweat.

All because I’m afraid of that ginormous food processor from the past. My cousin’s wife even cleansed it of all the dead insects and spiders–so why the fear? Why indeed. Is it so wrong to want a smaller, more modern food processor when I have this large and free one? I will be debating this internally, writhing in guilt, for at least the next few months, at which point I will give an updated status report.

Anyway, set the paste aside.

Cut the chicken thighs into bite-sized pieces (on the larger side).

You can also use big ole chicken pieces (such as drumsticks) after removing the skin, and leave them whole–that’s what the original recipe demands. But this time, I just wanted something I could scoop up with a spoon and ferry straight into my mouth. Either way, it’s great.

Heat the rest of the oil in the pot, and fry the chicken for 6-7 minutes.

Add the coconut paste (and note how the sunlight is quickly disappearing off to the side) . . .

. . . and cook over low heat for 30-40 minutes, until the coconut paste is a golden brown and the chicken is tender and cooked through, stirring occasionally to avoid burning at the bottom of the pot.

After about 15 minutes it still looked pretty pale . . .

. . . but as I stirred up the brown bits and gave it some time, after about 40 minutes it looked like this:

Mucho better-o. Time to taste, re-season, and stir in some cilantro.

The sauce is so flavorful, it blew my mind. Even though I had made it once before.

Also time to cook up some naan.

At this point my husband grabbed the camera from my hands.

Urgh–why do my knees look so . . . knobbly? Deformed?

Then again, let’s not dwell on that question for too long. They function and allow me to bend and walk and move around and such, so I’m grateful just to have ’em in there, cooperating with the cartilage and knee cap and tendons, doing their job day after day. Thank you, Oh Knobbly Ones.

Taste the curry and re-season if necessary . . . and serve it over rice!

Garnish with cilantro and freshly squeezed lemon juice–the lemon juice adds the perfect note.

Very tasty guys, very tasty. And different than anything else I’ve eaten.

I served it over that Golden Basmati Rice. Though it does it look kind of like . . .

. . . never mind. I won’t mention it.

Okay, I’ll mention it. Cat food!

I changed my mind. Erase that from your memory.

It’s great–make it!

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