One Teaspoon Of Life: Soup

Tomato soup

In this cold Bangalore weather, a hot soup is soooo comforting. Everybody's favourite soup at home? Tomato, of course. It doesn't take too much time to make it either. The perfect weekday evening soup. Most store bought soup powders use cornflour or other flours to obtain the thickness, I generally add some other veggies or 2 tbsp of dal to do the same. Makes it healthy as well as thick. Potato is the general thickening agent people use at home, I avoid it and generally use cauliflower or sweet potato.

Ingredients:

Tomato - 3 medium
Carrots - 2
Sweet potato - 1/2 cup (peeled and cubed)
Onion - 1 small
Bay leaf / Tej patta - 1
Cinnamon / Dalchini - 1" piece
Black peppercorns / Kali mirch - 4-5
Clove/ Lawang - 1-2
Olive oil - 1 tbsp
Pepper powder / Red chilli powder - 1-2 tsp
Sugar - 1/2 tsp
Salt
Water

Method:

Heat the olive oil in a cooker pan
Roughly chop the onions and fry for 1-2 mins
Roughly chop the tomato, sweet potato and carrot and add to the cooker
Add all the whole spices
Add water just enough to cover the vegetables
Add salt and pressure cook for appx 2-3 whistles or 5-8 mins
Cool the vegetables a little and puree them in a mixer
Pour the puree back into the pan, add a cup of water, sugar, red chilli powder or pepper and allow it to boil
Add more water if the soup is too thick.
Boil on low flame for another 8-10 mins.
Serve hot. The above recipe makes enough for 3 people.

Lauki or Gheeya or Bottle gourd is a low calorie vegetable and a good ingredient for soup. I learnt this recipe from my sister who seems to love it and apparently this aids in digestion. I was tired of the same old tomato soup and the instant soups are worse, they all taste so synthetic, so I decided to try this out. It is one of the easiest soups to make and full of fibre too...

Ingredients:

Bottle gourd - 1/2
Tomato - 1
Moong dal - 1/4 cup
Ginger - 1/2" piece (Optional)
Pepper
Salt

Method:

Peel and core the bottle gourd.
Cut it into 1 inch cubes
Pressure cook the bottle gourd along with the tomato and dal until soft and the dal is done. Around 4-5 whistles or 10-15 mins in the pressure cooker
Let it cool
Blend the cooked bottle gourd, tomato, dal and ginger in a blender.
Transfer the soup to a kadhai or sauce pan and heat. Add salt and freshly ground pepper.

This soup served 2 people in medium sized bowls.

Tomato soup

Lauki soup / Bottle gourd soup / Sorekai soup