Passport & Plate - Tortilla Soup
India | Wednesday, February 4, 2015 | 3 photos
Ingredients
For the tomato base
6 tomatoes roughly-chopped
2 cloves of garlic -roughly chopped
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp coriander powder
1/4 tsp cinnamon powder
1/2 cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp salt
500 ml of vegetable stock or water
2 tblsp of maize / corn flour
For the chunky section
1 tsp butter
1 onion
4 cloves of garlic
1 chicken breast
1 carrot
1 red bell pepper
1/2 cup sweet corn kernels
1 cup boiled kidney beans (rajma)
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp cumin powder
salt to taste
For the toppings
Sour cream
Spring Onions
Grated Cheese
Nachos
Lemon
Coriander
How to prepare this recipe1. In a blender add all the ingredients apart from the stock for the tomato base. Blend till smooth.
2. In large pot add all the stock and the tomato base. Let it cook while to get on with the other bits.
3. Now, go about making the chunky bits. Chop the onions, garlic, carrots and bell pepper into equal sizes.
4. In a saucepan, add the butter and add onions and garlic to it and sauté well. Add carrots, bell pepper, corn and kidney beans and sauté with salt and spices.
5. Slice the chicken very thin and add to the sauté pan. Sauté on high for 5 minutes Set aside.
6. As soon as the tomato base is done - about 20 minutes - add the sautéed veggies to the Soup Maker. Cover it and cook for about 20 minutes
7. Adjust for seasoning.
8. Ladle into bowls and give with a range of toppings. According to me it tastes best with a squeeze of lime, a dollop of sour cream - you can use yogurt instead - and crispy nachos.
The story behind this recipeBringing back a bit of Mexico to India
My grandmother was a globetrotter. She was a teacher, a Fulbright scholar and a freedom fighter. But most of all, she was a traveller. She could be a backpacker one day and a luxury traveller another.
But this story begins when she was 35. She'd just been made the principal of a school - when she'd received a 9-month fellowship that began in a few weeks in Washington DC. She was in a dilemma; after all as a refugee from Lahore, she'd just about to started to rebuild her life and she had three children all under the age of 10.
My grandfather though, lived vicariously through her. He told her to take the plunge. So that fall in 1960, she packed her bags and left to follow her dreams.
Through homestays and additional funding, she managed to travel across the Americas. She managed to meet people of different ethnicity and religions. She learnt their stories, their food and culture. One of the families she ended up staying in the cold winter of Washington was a Mexican family. Warm and receiving, this family was the one she treasured the most. She loved that they would make warm stews and soups for her when she'd come back tired from her University.
Which is why she brought back the recipe for Tortilla Soup. Tender beans that had been cooked with sweet corn and tomatoes and all sorts of spices that would burst in the mouth. There was some cinnamon, some cumin, some cayenne – a complete taste explosion- moping it with bread seemed the only consolation. It was warm, filling and total soul food.
This soup was a revelation – the colours was so vibrant, the aromas so rich that you knew that it was going to warm you completely from the insides. Come winter, Dadima (as we called her) would stand over that pot while the house smelt like a bouquet garni. By the end of the night we'd all be salivating, waiting for our bowls to be filled and refilled as she'd tell us for the umpteenth time about her travels.
