Creative Cookin'

Now that my Mom's Meatballs won her a trip to NYC (and a thanks to all who voted!) I thought I was entitled to show that the food magic does not skip a generation:

(We made the meatballs, but I didn't get to take a picture before they were all eaten

Here's a very yummy 5 layer dip that I don't remember how I made:

But more importantly, last week I made, for the very first time, Mulligatawny!

A bit of history: The British conquered the world. India didn't have soup. On of the ruling British Rajs though that this was too bad and made them add one to the menu. The result was Mulligatawny, an Anglization of the Indian words for "Pepper Water" - sounds good already! I'm not sure if this makes it a UK dish or an Indian dish, but I've seen it from both. (I think it's similar to chop suey in this regard)

Anyway, never having made it, I scoured the internet for recipes. There's not much consistency, although almost all of them had potatoes and cumin. So here's what I did:

Ingredients:

A Large Mixing Bowl Filled with Potatoes (peeled, and cut up)An Apple, prepared the same way as the potatoes

3 Small Onions and One big one

A few Green Onions

A few short stocks of celery sliced finely

3 thingies of garlic (you know the big things with all the little pod things on them) finely chopped)

Half a stick of butter, melted

Some Sesame Oil

Can of tomato soup

Bunch of cumin

Bunch of curry powder
Lots and Lots of Pepper (I used freshly ground black, white, pink and green as well as not-so-fresh crushed red pepper)

Some chicken bullion

2 cans evaporated milk

Most of the spices in your cupboard (see photo)

Nuts (crushed)

Diced green peppers

Some carrots

Directions:

Take the chopped oninons, chopped white parts of the green onions, diced green peppers, chopped garlic and finely sliced celery and sautate in some pans using the melted butter and/or sesame see oil. Throw some of the spices in as you sautate, like the cloves. I recommend watching youtube videoes while chopping, it can take a while...

In a big pot, boil the apple and potatoes that are already cubed and diced up in just enough water to cover them. Add some carrots also sliced and diced finely. Add a few more of the spices at this time (good time for chili powder and some cumin). Combine with the sautated mixture from the last step and continue to simmer. Add most of the rest of the spices (most especially the pepper and curry). Get a potato masher and use it to stir. When the potatoes are soft enough, start mashing them a little bit as you stir. (Most online recipies called for blening or pureeing but that sounded a lot harder...). The mixture should be kinda green at this point. Go ahead and add the tomato soup now and continue the simmer and mash...

OK, the hard part is crushing some peanuts. I used a garlic smasher and my fists, but I hear there's an easier way. By now the mixture should be mashed enough that you don't have any definative chunks that can be identified (i.e. a piece of potato). Add the milk which turns the green mixture into a much prettier, whiter green/yellow (see picture). Add the nuts, probably a little more cumin and the chicken bullion cubes. Continue to stir/mash, becasue this is such a thick soup, be careful that the bottom isn't burning...

Add anything else that was on the ingrediant list or that you think would be good... a little parsley, some Italian seasonings or oregeno, but not too much. Oh and cinnamon. That's important, a good bit of cinnamon.

If you've reduced it too much, you can add some more water too. The end result should be one of the thickest soups you've ever had, but still more running then really running mashed potatoes.

Finally, serve in some nice oriental bowls your mom got you and sprikle the green part of the chopped green onions on top. It goes well with fragrent yellow rice. I also cut up a grinder (sub) into a circle as back up (see picture below).

Viola! It was so good that Randy (torso, left) said "I don't like curry or potato soups, but this is great, I want the recipe!" (and then he had seconds). And so, here it is. Bon Apetite.