Secret ‘Mulllleee’ sweetness here – raisins
There’s a mini tornado blowing around the Beach House today, that can only mean one thing, the soup pan is making an appearance. It’s the kind of day when you want to ignore the inclement weather and get cosy by the fire with lashings of soup and preferably a cat and loved one (not in that order of course). So we’re staying in and making a spicy soup.
‘Mulllll-eeeee-gahhh-townnnn-yyyy ‘ is such a great word, it’s a meal in itself. For many years I’ve preferred the word to the soup, it always seemed like a half-hearted attempt at spicing a bland soup up, but always had the potential to be a real star.
We wanted to give the tired old Mulligatawny a touch of Beach House lovin’, add a little tickle and zing to predictable proceedings. The spices here make it rock and warm with a zestiness and aromatic tinge that tingles the palate (coming mainly from our pal the coriander seeds), there is also the lovely sweetness of the raisins and parsnips paired with the warm flavours of the garam masala. The mushrooms here were a late addition and do tend to make soups a little on the grey side. I don’t think they added a great deal here and could easily be omitted.
However, the highlight by far of this little number is our own leeks making an appearance. The Beach House Garden is hardly prolific, but it has given us some gems to savour and these little leeks were wonderful.
Beach House Leeks
WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
The name ‘Mulligatwany’ actually comes from two Tamil words (a state in the south east corner of India) meaning ‘pepper’ and ‘water’.
If you don’t like coriander husks, try and pick them out before blending (this goes for the bay leaves also). They can be a little tough and catch in the throat, which doesn’t really bother us.
Once more for luck and laughs, ‘Mulllll-eeeee-gahhh-townnnn-yyyy’.
MORE BEACH HOUSE SOUPS
If you like this, here are another couple of Beach House soups (we eat alot of soup up here in the windy hills of Wales):
Makes one big pan full, enough for four with possible leftovers. Hoorah!
The Bits
5 medium parsnips, 1 leek, 1 onion, 1 small sweet potato, 3 small potatoes, 4 cloves garlic, 4 large mushrooms, 1 apple, 3 bay leaves, 1/2 cup raisins, 1 ltr good veg stock
Spices – 1 tbs garam masala, 2 teas turmeric, 2 teas ground cumin, 5 cardamom pods, 1 teas coriander seeds
Parsnip Mulligatawny on the hob
Do It
In a large saucepan begin to soften your onions for 3 minutes, then add your leek and garlic, fry gently for 3 more minutes then add the rest of the vegetables and spices, stir in and heat for a couple of minute to get the spices warmed, then add your stock to a lovely low hissing noise. Bring to a gradual boil then cover and simmer for 40 minutes, until the veg is nicely tender.
Blend soup (taking out bay leaves and as many of the cardamom pods as you can fish out) and serve warm.
This soup keeps well in the fridge for days and should be nice thick texture, it may need a little thining out with water.
Parsnip Mulligatawny
Serve
Warm but not too warm (too much heat hides the flavour a little) and plenty of rough brown bread (recipe here). A drizzle of yoghurt/ sour cream is always a pleasant addition, a vegan cashew cream would also be quite amazing.
We Love It!
Proper rustic, hearty soup with a warm spice underbelly and punnet loads of aromatic flavours. Most definitely a meal in a bowl.
Aforementioned cat doing what they do when Tornados blow outside. We have so much to learn from these fur balls.
Foodie Fact
The great thing about parsnips, living in Wales, is that they actually need a good frost to grow well! No shortage of that up here. Parsnips are high in sugar, similar levels to that of banana and they are a great source of dietary fibre.
beach house kitchen 