Tomato Soup

I've been watching television advertisements for the last 5 minutes and realised that every second ad is related to food. Its either packaged food or a restaurant. Its interesting how our lives revolve so much around food. More the reason to eat well and eat healthy. Of course healthy doesn't mean that you compromise on taste. So, what is healthier, more filling or tastier than a bowl of piping hot soup? Some soup and a dinner roll makes for a great supper on cold dark winter nights and its a great pick me up when you have an awful cold that just won't go away. Makes a great appetizer or side dish and a healthy snack too. So without further ado, here's a tomato soup recipe for you to enjoy.

Ingredients
6-8 tomatoes
1 clove of garlic
1-2 cup water
1/2 medium onion
2 tsp cream
salt to taste
blackpepper to taste

Method
Roughly chop the tomatoes, garlic and onion and cook them in a pressure cooker with a cup of water. If you dont have a pressure cooker, you can also boil these in about 2 cups of water keeping the lid closed till the tomatoes and onion are cooked and soft. Puree this mix in a mixer to a fine paste. Bring it back to a boil, add salt and pepper to taste. Add the cream to it. Serve hot.

If using an Instant Pot, cook this on manual mode, high pressure for 5 minutes or on soup mode and us natural pressure release.

Tips
If the tomatoes are really sour you can add some sugar to balance out the sourness. Instead of adding cream, you can add a slurry of corn flour and water. If you want the soup to be creamy, add additional cream. If you do not like the texture that the tomato skin imparts to the soup, you can remove it before pureeing it. Add some croutons to it to make it more hearty. If you want to have a clear soup, do not add the cream or corn flour slurry.

Shrikhand (Sweet Yogurt)

A wonderful dessert and simple to make too! Shrikhand is a yogurt dessert. It has minimal ingredients and requires no cooking. It can be made well in advance. In fact it tastes much better when the flavors have had a chance to marry. This is a popular dessert made in Western India, specially in Maharashtra and Gujarat. The recipe that follows is the basic Shrikhand recipe. You can very easily change an ingredient to make this into Amrakhand.

Ingredients
2 - 3 cups of yogurt
1 cup powdered sugar
4-5 strands of saffron
1-1.5 tbsp mix  of sliced blanched almond and pistachio
1 pinch of powdered cardamom
1/8 tsp water or milk

Method
Tie up the yogurt in a fine cotton cloth/cheese cloth and hang it overnight or about 6-8 hours to drain the liquid part of the yogurt.  The yogurt should be as dry as possible so that it doesnt become runny when you add the sugar. Once all the water is drained, it will come together in a ball. The resultant yogurt volume will be about 1 to 1.5 cups of drained yogurt. To this add the sugar.  The sugar will get assimilated immediately. Soak the strands of saffron in about 1/8th tsp of milk and add this to the yogurt sugar mix. Add the nuts and cardamom powder. Stir everything together and refrigerate. Serve cold. Enjoy with chapati/puri or just on its own.

Tips
There is a lot of water in yogurt and you should be prepared that the remaining volume will be half of what you started out with. So be careful with your estimations. Use powdered sugar so that a lot of heat is not generated when you mix the it together with the yogurt. The powdered sugar will melt into the yogurt immediately. If granulated sugar is used, it will take a while to dissolve the sugar and will make the shrikhand runny or watery.

Monthly Mingle

My First Monthly Mingle Submission!

This is my first entry to a monthly mingle. Looking forward to participating. I am going to submit my Sol Kadhi recipe. I think it fits the brunch theme very well.

I am not sure how it works, but as they say, there's a first time to everything!! And it sure sounds like a lot of fun.

Sol Kadhi

"A Konkani delicacy", is how I was introduced to this dish. This is made in the Kokan region of Maharashtra in India. It has ingredients found in the region, namely coconut. Traditionally the coconut is scraped and then milk is extracted from the coconut. Since that it quite a tedious process, the dish is not frequently made and earns the title of a delicacy. I actually drank it only once in India and had not liked it then. It was store bought and very likely stale.
The first time I had it in the US, I loved it. It has a slightly sour taste and the creaminess of the milk balances this perfectly. The garlic pieces and chilles add the perfect bite to this. Now it may be a tedious dish to make from scratch, but if you can buy canned coconut milk, this is a great appetizer which can be made in under 30 minutes.

Ingredients
1 can coconut milk
3-4 kokan/amsul pieces
2 cloves garlic finely chopped
2 tsps clarified butter
4-5 curry leaves (kadhi patta)
1/8 tsp cumin seeds (jeera)
1-2 green chillies to taste
salt to taste
approximately 2 cups water

Method
Soak the amsul/kokam in 1 cup of warm water. Keep it aside. In a pot pour the coconut milk. Add 1 cup of water to the coconut milk, and stir. To this add the kokam extract water. In another small pan, heat ghee. To this add the cumin seeds. Once they start to pop, add the curry leaves, garlic and chillies. Take it off the heat once the garlic is golden brown. Cool the ghee mixture to room temperature. Add this to the coconut milk with the kokam. Stir. Add salt to taste. Heat this till it boils. Serve warm or cold per your taste. Makes a great soup and an appetizer.

Tips
Cut the garlic into small pieces that you would like to chew on while drinking the soup/kadhi. Make sure that the ghee has cooled down else the solids and water will separate. Do not substitute ghee with oil.

My other passion

I have started a new blog to pen down my other passion - Jewelry. Hope you enjoy reading it as well.

http://thejewellerydesigner.blogspot.com/

Refreshing and cool Jicama salad

When I was in Grad school, I used to take the bus from the campus back home. While waiting at the bus stop, I used to frequently enjoy a "fruit plate". There was a road side stall and the vendor used to cut up different fruits and vegetables like mango, melons, pineapple, cucumber and an interesting tasting white color melon like fruit/vegetable. The fruit that intrigued me the most was this white color fruit. It was later while watching a cooking show that I realised that the white color fruit was Jicama. Now this has a crunchy texture and reminds me of a potato, but it is not like a potato. It doesn't have a specific taste and may taste a bit starchy. It seems to have a good water content, not sure if this is the case but it seems like a cross between a melon and a potato. I decided to use it in a salad which reminded me of the good old grad school days.



Ingredients
For the Salad
1 small Jicama, peeled and chopped into thin strips about 1 inch long
half head of an Iceberg lettuce, roughly chooped into similar strips
half a red onion chopped length wise into half moon shaped slices.

For the dressing
1 tsp Olive oil (optional)
Juice of 1 lemon
Lemon zest of 1 lemon
1 tbsp cilantro leaves finely chopped
salt to taste
pepper to taste
a little cayenne pepper to taste (optional)
1/4 tsp cumin powder



Method
Mix the salad ingredients in a bowl. In another bowl mix all the ingredients listed under dressing and mix it thoroughly. Pour the dressing over the salad and toss it together.
Let it sit for half and hour in the refrigerator so that the flavors are absorbed by the vegetables.
Enjoy with some soup or as a side dish.

Tips
Olive oil creates an emulsion and helps the salad to stick to the salad.