Dhal Soup

Happy New Year to all.

Love, Give and Serve - Swami Shantananda Saraswathi.

Let us start the new year with a nice subtle tasting Moong dhal soup.

Few months ago I had this wonderful soup at Annalakshmi Restaurant, Singapore. I was able to persuade  the master chef who made this soup to share the recipe with me.

Simple and easy soup with easily available ingredients. On top of all its very healthy and full of proteins. Okay, I am not talking about the goodness of lentils again in this post. You can check about the nutritional facts of lentils here.

Ingredients : 1/4 cup -- Moong dhal 1 no -- Tomato medium size 1 no -- Green chilli 1 tbsp -- Butter 1 tsp -- Jeera Powder 1/2 tsp -- Turmeric powder 1 -2 no -- Garlic pod 2 tbsp -- Besan / Chickpea flour 2 tsp -- Corriander leaves finely chopped Salt and Pepper powder to taste Method : --- Pressure cook the Moong dhal, until the dhal becomes mushy and disintegrate its shape. --- While that is cooking, grind the garlic and the chilli to a fine paste. ---  Heat the butter in a sauce pan in medium heat. Add the ground garlic mixture and saute them for few seconds and add the besan / chickpea flour, turmeric and fry in the butter. --- Once a nice aroma comes from the flour, add jeera powder, cut tomatoes and mix well. --- Turn the flame to low and add the cooked moong dhal and mix well in the flour mixture. --- Add 1 cup water and cook for few minutes. According to taste add salt and pepper. Please bare in mind that we used a chilli in the first. --- After 5 - 7 minutes garnish with fresh corriander leaves and serve warm.

Sumptuous restaurant style soup is ready to serve. Try not to over power the taste with  garlic or Jeera. It will change the taste of the soup.

Cream of vegetable soup

Last weekend we decided to eat out and headed to our favourite restaurant here. As usual the food did not disappoint and we stuffed ourselves up. Guilt began to bite us and we thought a long walk would quieten it. Walked along  the beautifully decorated Orchard Road. Oh yeah, also saw the male models standing outside the Abercombie&Fitch outlet to celebrate the opening of their new shop in Singapore. This is the hot news here, with all the local news channels covering this for the past one week.

The food we had this time was a little different from our usual one. I wanted to try them at home in my style. This cream of vegetable soup is one among them.  Most of the time I prepare tomato soup and red coloured vegetable soup. So I wanted to try this soup since it tasted so rich, creamy and with lots of vegetables, of course the color is different from what I used to cook:)

Very easy to make and satisfies your heart and stomach.

Ingredients : 1 cup -- Cut vegetables 1 no -- Onion (small size) 1 pod -- Garlic 2 cups -- Water or Vegetable stock. 2 tsp -- Corn flour 1 tbsp -- Butter 1/4 cup -- Milk 1/4 cup -- Heavy cream (optional) 1/4 cup -- Grated cheese (optional) Black pepper and salt to taste Method : --- Heat the sauce pan to the medium heat and add butter. --- Slice the onion, garlic and saute them in the butter. After a minute add the cut vegetables. *** Choose the vegetables according to your taste. I used yellow and green coloured bell peppers, carrots, peas. Also cut the vegetable to small thin pieces. You can use cauliflower, broccoli, beans, corns, choices are endless. --- Once they are half cooked add water or vegetable stock, pepper, salt and cook well. --- Now take the corn flour and dissolve in the milk without any lumps. Pour the mixture to the cooking stock. --- Cook until a creamy thick soup is formed. It will take about 3 - 5 minutes. --- Last stage. add heavy cream and cheese and mix well . Turn the heat off. --- Heavy cream and cheese are optional, this adds more rich taste to the soup. I did not use cheese in this soup. Without that itself my soup tasted just like  the one we had in the restaurant.

Restaurant style cream of vegetable soup is ready to serve at your table.

Lemon lentil soup

Warm yellow color, tangy taste, nice aroma, hm... whenever, I think of  lemon, I will go into my own lemony world.

Long long ago, my mami had a small lemon tree in her backyard, but it used to yield lots of lemons. Best example for the tamizh saying 'மூர்த்தி சிறுசு கீர்த்தி பெரிசு'. My mami's home was my summer holidays abode and I have sweet memories of that lemon tree and its fresh offerings. Poor thing, it had to make way when my mami's house was expanded. It is still a conversation starter when we all get together.

Coming to our story, I bought a dozen of big lemons and enjoyed all my favorite recipes, lemon rice, lemon sevai, lemon rasam, etc. Last week, when I was browsing, this recipe caught my eyes and when I fully read, it sounded more similar to our south Indian dish. One second I stopped reading and asked myself, am I reading the soup or sambar? Wanted to give it a try.

I found this recipe in Oprah.com. Tried this lemon lentil soup with a little twist and it tasted perfect. You can find the original recipe here.

Ingredients : Serves - 6 person 2 cup -- cooked lentil*** 1 cup -- mixed vegetables chopped 2 tbsp -- Tomato puree 1 no -- Onion, medium size chopped 2 tbsp -- Olive oil 2 clove -- Garlic lemon juice from half a lemon Fresh cilantro Salt and pepper to taste *** In the original recipe Oprah have used red lentil, I used the left over dal I had in the fridge, Combination of toor dal and the moong dal Method: --- Take a sauce pan with the olive oil and turn the heat to medium. --- Add onions, garlic and saute them in the oil for few minutes, Add the vegetables and cook until the vegetables become tender. --- You can use any vegetables, I used carrots, beans and squash. --- Once the vegetables become soft, now its time to add our cooked lentil, tomato puree. Add them to the vegetables and cook for 3-5 minutes. Let the mixture to cool a little. --- Transfer the whole mixture to the blender and pulse the mixture for few times. We neither want the vegetables to grind fully or big chunks. --- Pour the grind mixture in the pan again and add 2-3 cups of water depending upon the consistency. --- Turn the heat to medium and add pepper,salt and lemon juice. And cook for 3 minutes, just to bring the flavour to the soup. --- Finally add the chopped cilantro for color and taste.

Rich in protein, lots of vegetables and lemony flavour. Serve this soup with little cheese on top and along with the Garlic bread. I assure you that you will love this combination.

Spinach Veggie soup

My laptop caught a virus and fell sick a fine morning and it took a week of heroic efforts from my husband and his friend to bring it back to pristine health. Thanks to 'draft' option in the Blogger, I was able to retrieve all the posts that I had completed a week ago. So after a long gap, here comes Spinach Veggie soup to recover any kind illness. Oh come on, Man or machine - soup is the best healing food

I have to admit that I was never crazy about soups. Almost all of my encounters with soups were in the form of ready-made soups, which have dried vegetables in it. I felt these flavours taste the same. Only the colors were different.

I love fresh vegetables. 99% I buy fresh vegetables only. No frozen or tinned stuffs. Now, weekly once you can find a soup in my dinner menu. No more store bought soups. I started making my own chunky fresh veggie soups. I love to have chunks of vegetables in my every spoon. Easy to make, hearty to eat.

Last week, I tried the spinach vegetable soup for my birthday dinner party. Oh, everybody like it.

Ingredients : Serves - 4 person 1 cup --- Chopped vegetables*** 1 no --- Medium size onion 2 no --- medium size Roma tomatoes 2 tbsp --- Butter (optional) / Olive oil 1 cup --- spinach Salt and ground pepper to taste *** Combination of vegetables will be great for the soup Carrot, beans, potatoes, peas, celery. Method : --- Maximum try to use fresh vegetables than the frozen or canned one. --- In a sauce pan add the butter and turn the heat to medium. --- Saute the onions until it turns translucent. Add all the vegetables and cook, until tender. --- Meanwhile in a pan cook the whole tomato and the spinach leaves with a cup of water. After few minute, the skin tomatoes will shrink and cracks. --- Take the tomatoes out, cool them and take the skin off. --- Now, we go to the other pan which is cooking vegetables. Check whether the vegetables are cooked, once done turn the heat off. --- In a blender, put the tomatoes, cooked spinach with the water and few cooked vegetables less than half quantity and blend it. --- Turn the heat on, take the sauce pan which is having the cooked vegetables, add the tomato mixture from the blender. The blend mixture give the thickness and texture to the soup. --- Add 3 cups of water to the mixture and cook for 10 minutes. You can increase or reduce the water accordingly depending upon the soup consistency. --- Now its time to give little taste to the soup, add freshly ground pepper and salt, cook for 2-3 minutes. --- Turn off the heat and serve warm with bake pakodas.