Food talk
 Peanut in soup

It may be eaten as an appetiser or treated like a meal—tasty, filling and nourishing,
says Pushpesh Pant

WHO doesn’t know how excruciating it can be to be "in a soup"—certainly a highly avoidable situation. It is equally well known that nothing is as welcome as a bowl of piping hot soup in winter evenings.

The Brits gave their Indian subjects a taste for soups—cream of tomato and chicken are part of the legacy of the Raj.

The Chinese added to this repertoire the sweet corn, hot and sour, won ton and talumein. There is no dearth of exotica in the realm of soups. Shark fin is not quite kosher nowadays nor is birds nest soup in the era of green politics. Indonesian laksa and the Japanese miso are just being discovered. The Thais chipped in with Tom Yam and the like, leaving the poor bawarchi to respond with palak, daal or baadam ka shorba.


Chef’s special

Ingredients

Carrots (chopped) 200 gm
Potatoes (chopped) 200 gm
Red bell peppers (seeded and chopped) two
Vegetable stock 2-1/2 cup
Corn 100 gm
Peanut butter 6 tbsp
Peanuts (roasted, roughly chopped) 50 gm
Sticks celery (sliced) 50 gm
Large onion (finely chopped) one
Cloves garlic (crushed) two
Coarsely ground black pepper
Chilly powder 1 tsp
Salt to taste

Method

Heat oil in a large pan and cook onions and garlic for about three minutes, then add chilly powder. Put in the peppers along with celery and other vegetables and cook for about five minutes stirring regularly. Now pour in the vegetable stock with peanut butter and corn. Stir well. Bring to a boil, season and simmer on low heat for about 20 minutes. Garnish with chopped peanuts and serve.

Truth be told, there were no soups in the traditional Indian cuisine—shorba was part of the diet prescribed for the convalescent. Rasam comes closest to the idea of a soup. Sometimes mulligatawny is mentioned but that is an Anglo-Indian concoction.

The Italians love their zuppa and Greeks have vegetarian exotica like the pumpkin or aubergine soups and the Mexican have the incredibly refreshing cold gazpacho. The Russians have their classic borscht and the Americans delight in seafood chowders.

A soup may be thin and watery like the chicken consomm`E9 or reach the table in its broth avatar with porridge-like consistency. It can comprise the first course or be served as a main course dish. Obsessive dieters rely on soups and salads and even the gluttons find them useful to work up an appetite. It may be eaten as an appetiser or be treated like a main course dish—tasty, filling and nourishing (noodle soups fall in this category).

Once you have mastered making stock, not much remains to be done. Even this skill can be skipped if good stock cubes are available (assorted vegetables or soup bones simmered or pressure cooked with bay leaf, pepper corns, salt and seasoning are the minimum requirements for stock). Garnishes are unlimited—coriander, bread croutons, a dollop of cream or a blob of butter. Invest in a set of soup bowls and a toureen and you can transform a simple meal into a magical memory to be cherished for life.

We have great pleasure in sharing with our readers a recipe that goes beyond tomato, chicken and mushrooms. Do try it.

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