Secret Recipe Club--Mulligatawny Soup

This month for Secret Recipe Club, I had Sarah from Sarah's Kitchen for my blog. Originally from Kent, Sarah has been in the states for 13 years. I thought that was pretty intriguing, and because of that I really wanted to try a British recipe (although I am also dying to try the shrimp she just recently posted and this slow cooker recipe). The one I settled on was this soup. I mean how do you pass up a soup named Mulligatawny. It is a British soup after an Indian recipe--or at least that was the favorite definition I found on the internet. It also explains why this soup that I knew as a British soup had curry as a main player. The translation of mulligatawny (again, per the handy Internet) means pepper-water. It was better than that.

I also liked it because it came together in an easy 30 minutes and has a bunch of healthy players in its line up. It's great to make if you've got leftovers like chicken, rice, and some veggies. Seriously, you could take a chicken/rice dinner and totally turn its leftovers on their heads with this dish. Warm, comforting, and rich, it's a lovely autumn soup if you get bored of the standard winter squash variations (not that they're not awesome, of course).

Mulligatawny Soup
adapted from Sarah's Kitchen
Makes 6 servings
Prep and cook time: 30 minutes
Cost: $4.15
butter: .25, onion: .10, carrot: .10, celery: .20, tomato paste: .20, curry: .25, apple: .40, coconut milk: 1.50, chicken stock: .30, chicken: .75 rice: .10

Note: If you haven't got coconut milk, you can sub cream or half and half, but you'll want to add it near the end of cooking and warm, not boil it.

1/4 C butter
1 onion, peeled and chopped or grated
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
3 Tbsp tomato paste
2 Tbsp curry powder
2 Tbsp flour
2-3 Tbsp grated ginger (or half that much powder)
1 grated green apple
3 C chicken stock
1 can coconut milk
1/2 C cooked rice (I happened to have this so I used, but you could skip if you don't want to make a small amount of rice)
1 chicken breast, cooked and chopped
salt and pepper to taste

If your chicken is raw, cook it. You can do this by boiling then shredding or by stir frying it in a bit of butter and salt.

While it's cooking, melt the butter in a saucepan. Add onion, carrot, and celery and season with salt and pepper. Cook for 5-8 minutes.

Add tomato paste, curry powder and flour. Cook 2 minutes, stirring frequently. Add ginger and apple and stir a couple more minutes. Add cooked chicken.

Add stock and coconut milk. simmer until thickened. Add rice if using and heat through.

Season to taste.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

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