Sunday, September 2, 2007

Tomato Shorba ( not Shorbet ;) )

The first time I had Tomato Shorba, I thought that the restaurant had cheated me by giving me flavoured tomato water ;) I slowly and gradually developed a taste for it. And it has become one of my favourites now. I got so addicted at one time that whenever I had friends visiting me, I would literally kidnap them to this restaurant! Remember, Vrindu?

Note - This was in a restaurant in Adyar, Chennai. Since morning, I have been raking my brain (read Google and Google Maps) trying to remember the restaurant's name :( Even then, no complaints against google since I got the Tomato Shorba recipe using it :) The link is here. This is supposedly a Maharastrian recipe as per Tarla Dalal shown here.

Ingredients (makes 4 servings)

Large tomato - 3 chopped into cubes
Coconut milk - 1/2 cup (I used the Chakoah canned coconut milk.)
Gram Flour (Besan) - 1/2 tsp
Lemon juice from half a lemon
Salt - 1 tsp or as per taste
Sugar - 1/4 tsp or as per taste

Olive oil - 1/4 tsp
Butter - 1/2 tsp
Cumin seeds - 1/4 tsp
Curry leaf - 4
Small Green chilli - 4, sliced into halves

Fresh coriander leaves - 2 tbsp
Ground pepper

Step 1

Pressure cook the chopped tomatoes for 1 whistle in medium-high heat with half a teaspoon of salt and sufficient water. After the whistle, cook for 10 mins in low heat. Mash the tomatoes. Use a strainer to separate the skin-seeds residue from the juice. We will only use the juice.

Step 2

Mix the coconut milk with gram flour. Take care to avoid lumps of gram flour. To this, add the tomato juice prepared as part of Step 1. Add the lemon juice, salt and sugar. Mix it well.

Step 3

Heat olive oil. Add butter. Olive oil is only being used to prevent the butter from burning (Tip from Paula's Cooking in Food Network).
Add cumin seeds, curry leaf and green chilli. Once the cumin is brown, add the tomato-coconut milk mixture prepared in Step 2.
Garnish with chopped coriander leaves and fresh ground pepper powder.




I am submitting this for the Super Soup Challenge being hosted by Tami of Running with Tweezers. Due date for this is September 10th, 2007.

6 comments:

Tee said...

Tomato Shorba looks really good! No wonder you got addicted to it ;)
I make this too, but my recipe doesn't have besan in it. i will try it next time I make this. Thanks for the recipe! :)

Pragyan said...

Hi Tee, Thanks for the lovely comment. :)

TBC said...

I like the sound of tomato shorba. Never made it before. Some tomato paste along with the tomatoes would give it a nice red color. I will try it when I can. Thanks for the recipe.

TBC said...

I forgot to add one more thing... You had asked about substituting broccoli for cauliflower in the soup(on my blog). You can definitely do that. I have also posted a recipe for Cream of broccoli soup earlier on. Here is the link http://thebuddingcook.blogspot.com/2007/07/cream-of-broccoli-soup_30.html

Pragyan said...

TBC: Tomato paste sounds like a great idea to get the red color. Will definitely try the cream of brocolli soup..thanks for letting me know.:)

Dazy said...

I was looking for something creative like this. Then tried this recipe. It didn't disappoint me. It's a snap to prepare and really tasty.