Author: Faith

This week’s cookbook is Soup: Superb Ways With a Classic Dish, another one of the $5 cookbooks published by Hermes House that I’ve picked up. The range of this book is pretty remarkable: it covers soups from around the work such as Hot and Sour Soup, Chiang Mai Noddle Soup, and Plantain and Corn Soup as well as western standards like Chicken Noodle Soup.

I decided use this book when I woke up on Monday and saw an inch of snow on the ground (!) I flipped through the book and decided to make a lentil soup since I had most of the ingredients on hand and it seemed like a cozy-type of soup. Never mind that it had warmed up to 55 degrees by the time dinner rolled around. (Crazy Utah weather.)

The soup was easy to make but a little on the subtle side. I like spicy food and was tempted to squirt some Sriracha or Tabasco into it to liven it up but I resisted and tried to embrace the lentil-y goodness.

Lentil Soup with Rosemary from Soup: superb ways with a classic dish

Ingredients

• a cup dried green or brown lentils
• 3 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 3 bacon slices, cut into small dice
• 1 onion, minced
• 2 celery stalks, minced
• 2 carrots, minced
• 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, minced
• 2 bay leaves
• 14-oz can plum tomatoes
• 1 3/4 quarts vegetable stock
• salt and fresh ground black pepper

Directions

1. Place the lentils in a bowl and cover with cold water. Leave to soak for at least 2 hours; rinse and drain well.
2. Heat the oil in a large sauce pan. Add the bacon and cook for about 3 minutes. Stir in the onion and cook for 5 minutes until soft. Stir in the celery, carrots, rosemary, bay leaves, and lentils. Toss over the heat for 1 minute until well coated in the oil.
3. Tip in the tomatoes and stock, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat, half-ocer the pan, and simmer for about 1 hour until the lentils are tender.
4. Remove the bay leaves and add salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

The Verdict
3 out of 5 stars. This is a handy book that covers almost every soup you’d want to make. The wide scope kind of makes me wonder how consistently good all the recipes are, though. Most recipes are pretty healthy but unfortunately nutritional information is not included. All recipes include several photos and clear directions. An introductory section includes step-by-step recipes for creating stocks from scratch. Worth picking up for $5 or $6 if you can.

This week was the first time since I started this series that I noticeably stretched myself in the cooking department. I made two recipes from the Best-Ever Curry Cookbook and it literally took me over two hours to get everything together. Not that the recipes were crazy difficult or anything like that; I just think I am sort of the anti-Rachel Ray in that I can take the simplest recipe and futz around with it until the time and energy I’ve used could have powered a good cook *cough*Mindy*cough* through preparing a lavish banquet.

But at least after my hours spent in the kitchen I ended up with some tasty food. I made Chicken Saag and Courgettes (zucchini) in Spiced Tomato Sauce.

Chicken Saag is one of my favorite Indian dishes. In particular I love how they make it at this local place. This recipe wasn’t exactly the same but it tasted pretty similar and was really good. I’m definitely want to cook it again.

Nothing fancy to look at but it was really tasty.

The only problem with the recipe was that it has you adding one or two ingredients at a time and then simmering for 5 minutes, then repeating over and over. I kept getting lost as I was cooking so I’ve simplified it a bit here.

Chicken Saag from Best-Ever Curry Cookbook by Mridula Baljekar

Ingredients

• 8 oz fresh spinach leaves, washed
• 1 inch piece ginger root
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 fresh green chili, roughly chopped
• 1 scant cup of water
• 2 T vegetable oil
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/4 t black peppercorns
• 1 yellow onion, finely chopped
• 4 tomatoes skinned and finely chopped (I forgot to buy some so I used canned *gasp!*)
• 2 t curry powder
• 1 t salt
• 1 t chili powder
• 3 T plain yogurt plus extra to serve
• 8 chicken thighs, skinned

Directions

1. Cook the spinach, without water, in a tightly covered pan for 5 minutes (on medium-low heat). Put the spinach, ginger, garlic, and chili pepper with 1/4 c of water into a food processor and puree.
2. Heat the oil in a large pan, add the bay leaves, pepper corns, and chopped onion and saute, stirring, until the onion is translucent.
3. Add the chopped tomatoes, curry powder, salt, and chili powder to the pan and simmer for 5 minutes.
4. Add the spinach puree and the remaining water (3/4 c) to the pan and simmer for 5 minutes.
5. Stir in the yogurt, about 1 T at a time and simmer for 5 minutes. Taste and adjust spices as needed.
6. Add the chicken. Cover and cook (on low) for 25-30 minutes or until the chicken is tender and cooked through.
7. Serve with warm naan (I used whole wheat pita because I had it on hand), drizzled with plain yogurt and dust lightly with the chili powder.

Serves 4

The Verdict
4 out of 5 stars. This rating is conditional on you being able to pick it up in the bargain section of a bookstore for about $5 like I did. For that price this book is a great deal. It provides a solid grounding in Indian food complete with lots of background information. And each recipe includes multiple photos showing some of the steps involved and the finished dish. The only faults I found are that the directions can be kind of vague (as in not specifying what level of heat you should use) and at times not very clearly written (I found myself rereading the list of directions several times because I kept getting lost). But both of those issues were probably exacerbated by my own inexperience in the kitchen. This book give you a window into authentic Indian cuisine for a great price.