FOOD | SPICY SOUP

SPICY SOUP

INGREDIENTS
1 large onion, diced
1 head of garlic, crushed and peeled
¼ pumpkin, peeled then cut into cubes
1 red capsicum, cut into bits (like the garlic, they will dissolve, so don’t worry too much about the size)
2 tablespoons, Azlan’s Spice Mix see:

250 ml lentils
250 ml dried chickpeas
1 packet Latvian garlic paste (optional)
300 ml hummus (optional)
EVOO

METHOD
Sweat the onions with some EVOO in your pressure cooker with the lid off. When its almost done, add the spice mix, some salt, the Latvian garlic paste (optional), the garlic cloves and whole cumin seeds. The last two minutes should be fine, its to release the aroma of the spices and cumin.

While this is happening, put the lentils and dried chickpeas in a bowl and rinse them out with tap water. After three or four changes of water, drain all the water out. Add some EVOO to the wet lentils and chickpeas, stir, and let it rest for at least 10 minutes (some people say better overnight). The oil is supposed to help soften the pulses when they’re being cooked. The important thing is not to add any salt before cooking as salt will dehydrate the pulses and harden them.

Take half to ⅔ of the wet oily pulses and blend them with about 400 ml of water. I use my Kuvings SV500 Vacuum Blender but its not critical, any blender will do. Pour your blended pulses and water mixture into the sweated onions in the pressure cooker. Your blender jar will have some traces of of stuff. Don’t worry, just add another 400ml of water and blend another cycle. This should help clean up your blender jar and make washing up even easier later. Pour the liquid into your pressure cooker.

Add the remaining 1/3 to 1/2 of the oily wet chickpeas and lentils into the pressure cooker. The capsicum and pumpkin pieces and hummus (optional) as well. Stir well until the hummus is dissolved nicely. Taste and adjust the salt as necessary. If too salty, just add more water.

Put the lid of the pressure cooker on and set for “SOUP” mode and take a well-deserved nap, check Facebook, watch YouTube videos or something.

Once its done, eat with bread. You may find you have loads of soup leftover. Don’t worry. You can use it as a base for another soup (just add diced carrots, potatoes, tomato, leeks or celery) or stew (add some cornflour and the veg plus some meat like chicken pieces or lamb or beef cubes. Set your pressure cooker to another cycle of “SOUP” or “STEW” as necessary. Its very easy, really.

VARIATION
If you want it spicier, you can add gigi paste when sweating the onions. Gigi paste is what the Indians call a paste made by blending ginger and garlic into a paste.