Week 175: Mulligatawny Soup
Happy Thursday :-)
This week's menu features a brand-new soup, introduced to me by Shelley, who is one of the two amazing women working with me in the kitchen to make your dinners every week. Shelley is a fantastic cook, we are constantly talking about food when we are together! This recipe came from an old cookbook featuring local Cincinnati restaurant recipes... place your order fast, you will not want to miss out on this tasty new soup.
On the menu for TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26th is SHELLEY'S MULLIGATAWNY SOUP with CHALLAH. It is believed that Mulligatawny soup was concocted by Indian cooks to serve the British need to have a soup before a meal. Given there was no concept of a soup in traditional South Asian cuisine, ingenious cooks are said to have adapted the one dish, the rasam, that resembled soup. This fragrant soup is spiced with curry and made from creamy red lentils, carrots, apples and coconut milk.
The soup begins by sautéing onion and curry powder in olive oil in the pot. Once the curry powder is fragrant, diced chicken, tart apples, carrots, celery, and green peppers are added. Once the veggies are softened, a little flour is added to start a roux to help thicken the soup. Next, homemade chicken stock, diced tomatoes, red lentils, fresh parsley and a little lemon juice are added and brought to a boil. Once the lentils are cooked, the soup is finished with coconut milk to add a layer of creaminess. The soup is garnished with fresh cilantro and chopped cashews.
My bread companion this week is Challah, a soft, eggy, and beautifully braided bread. This simple bread made with eggs, flour, yeast, salt and honey will just melt in your mouth and be the perfect companion to this soup!!
The dessert on the menu this week is WHITE CHOCOLATE PUMPKIN SNICKERDOODLES. I'm so excited to offer a fall version of snickerdoodles. These soft and chewy cookies are full of pumpkin, white chocolate and cinnamon sugar. Pumpkin has a way of making everything it touches taste cakey, but I prefer a chewy and dense cookie. When it comes to baking with pumpkin, there are a few secrets that I utilize to achieve a chewy cookie. One of which is to not use eggs. This is because pumpkin is soft, mushy and full of moisture. When it comes to cookies, excessive moisture means cakey texture. Eggs are used in cookies to bind ingredients together and leave behind moisture. Essentially, pumpkin replaces the egg in these cookies. Enjoy! - Jenny from Jenny Sue Delights