Spiced Vegetable Soup

From The New Tastes of India, Das Sreedharan, Headline, 2001.

I had not realised that soups were part of the Indian cuisine so I was keen to try this one and, as I had all of the ingredients on hand, I got straight into it.

About 100g of cabbage was finely sliced and the same amount of cavolo nero sliced. The recipe called for spinach but I had cavolo nero on hand. A green chilli was also sliced finely. These all went into a saucepan on a reasonably low heat for 5 minutes to wilt but not completely cook.

At the same time a potato and a carrot were chopped and placed in a saucepan with salted water. This was brought to the boil and they were cooked until soft. They were then drained and part mashed.

Half an onion was finely sliced and cooked until soft in a little butter with 3 cloves and a cinnamon stick. A tablespoon of plain flour was added together with the mashed potato and carrot. This was stirred into the onion and cooked for a little longer.

Now almost a litre of water was stirred in with the green vegetables and two tomatoes cut into quarters. This was brought to the boil and simmered for 5 more minutes, stirring every so often. I tasted it now and it lacked flavour so I added a vegetable stock cube to the soup. This improved it considerably.

The soup was now served with finely chopped red capsicum and crisp onion flakes.

The spices gave this soup a distinctive flavour quite unlike any other soup I have had before. The cinnamon came through strongly though did not detract from the greens. 

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔