Soup… Give Pickle or Mulligatawny (or maybe even West Lake Soup) a try
So one good thing about being about the virus is that there is time in the evening when I am not commuting home to make soup. Alot has been written about the goodness of soup and I do think much of that is deserved and some is overated. A chef who was born in the 1800’s and lived in France said:
Soup puts the heart at ease, calms down the violence of hunger, eliminates the tension of the day, and awakens and refines the appetite.
Auguste Escoffier
On the whole, I am not much of a soup fan-I had to make every week for my mom while she lived with me as she ate soup every day and at some point I ran out of ideas for soup. Unfortunately, there are several soups on the Mimi Sheraton 1000 Foods to Eat before you Die so this week I made three from the list.
Soup number 1 is Indian Mulligatawny soup. I have had this many a time in the Bengal lounge of the Empress Hotel in Victoria-I loved that lounge and I loved their Mulligatawny soup. A nice mix of veggies and chicken flavored with curry… I love madras curry so used that in place of traditional curry to make it spicy. The version I used was made used the recipe from Simple Recipes.
Soup number 2 is Chinese West Lake Soup. This is an upscale version an egg drop soup and can be made with either beef or fish. With Elena a pescatarian, I made it with cod. So just as egg drop soup is pretty boring, so is West Lake Soup but just with protein. Hmmm. I used the Serious Eats recipe. I also dosed it with siracha (absolutely not in the recipe but I did think it reduced the boringness of the soup.
Finally, Soup number 3 is Solyanka or Russian Pickle Soup. So I know this sounds horrible but I promise, this was the winner. It is creamy and salty and the mix of carrots, potatoes and pickles with sour cream and a host of spices did the trip. The recipe I used came from The Noble Pig website. I haven’ cooked anything from this site before but the recipe was fabulous so I’m looking there again.
I am now on a soup kick. Haven’t tried these but am going to work myself through a few more from around the world…
18 Classic Soups to Try from Around the World
