Monday, January 21, 2013

Carrot Soup with an Indian twist

This was something that happens once in many blue moons in the deep south and I had to celebrate it! And like any other time when I thought about celebration, food (soup to be precise) is what came to my mind. 

This also came to my mind...


“To feel safe and warm on a cold wet night, all you really need is soup.”

Laurie Colwin 






My better half lives for chicken, so a soup without chicken was impossible. Opened the fridge...NO CHICKEN!! But I did not lose hope. I found last night's dry chicken curry. Eureka!!


Carrot soup with an Indian twist. We are such Indians at heart..bring on the curry any hour of the day!  Oh and I also had some last night's Indian spinach fried rice (fried with some cumin, spinach and onion), so why not dump that in there too?





Now I haven't told you before but I love my Prep 9 food processor to death because I hate cutting veggies. It just takes too much out of me and by the time I get to real cooking, I have lost some of my passion already. So, I sliced the carrots using my gadget!





Now to the how you do it part.


You will need:

4-5 carrots
1 medium onion
Roasted curried chicken (if you are not fortunate enough to have chicken curry in your fridge, you can put a tsp of curry powder right before pureeing the soup)
1/2 cup cooked rice
1 tsp cumin seeds (optional) If you don't have seeds feel free to garnish with 1 tsp cumin powder
1/2" ginger (grated)
1 tbsp butter
Salt
Pepper
1 can chickpea (idea courtesy http://smittenkitchen.com/)
Pita or tortilla (idea courtesy http://smittenkitchen.com/)

In hot butter I sizzled some cumin seeds followed by onion When my onion softened I put the carrots, ginger, salt and pepper in. Cooked open for 5 mins and then with closed lid for 10 minutes until the carrots were soft. This mixture was then pureed (blender, hand bender, food processor..anything that can mash it). I again put it in the pan to make it piping hot.

When all this was happening, on the side, I roasted canned chickpea (seasoned with salt and cayenne) for 10 mins at 450F until they were brown and crispy. Make sure not to put too much salt because this will go in the soup and we don't want a super salty soup! Though smittenkitchen calls for pita, I used multi grain tortilla and crisped it in the oven because that's all I had on hand!

The chickpeas go in the soup and the tortilla is your bread. And, here you go...feel loved by the soup beauty! I sure felt warm and safe (watching the snow outside was the added bonus).



4 comments:

  1. Oh that soup looks so good Astha. I do such jugad food all the time when the Indian in me craves for Indian food.

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    1. It tasted good and was perfect for a cold day!!

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  2. I'm usually not a fan of carrot soup, but I know I'd love it with the addition of curry powder--yum! Such a good idea. :)

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    1. Curry solves a lot of my problems..you will like it :)

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