Waiting for snow, enjoying the cold, walking with my friend, feeling first round of snowflakes falling on me, is a pretty good description of my day! Weather and heart often influence the choice of food that is being cooked at my home. With such a cold, wintry or rainy day, I wanted to make something that is hot and piping, colorful and easy, something between a soup and salad and something that gives a happy and warm feeling to one and all.
A dish like this is the Spicy Rajma Soup Salad. Many of you having ties with Sudan will know this dish as ” Sudan na Phool”. This dish originated in Sudan. The Gujaratis living there have created this vegetarian entree of a Sudanese delicacy, and spread it amongst the community. There are special Sudanese kidney beans that are used to make this. But, due to lack of its availability on a regular basis, I often make this with Red Kidney Beans, and hence I would like to rename this as Spicy Rajma Soup Salad . The red kidney beans resemble in shape and color to the original Sudan Phool. Some Indian shops do keep the original Sudan Phool, according to a friend of mine.
This is easily a complete meal by itself and it is highly colorful, extremely easy, very nutritious and fulfilling too. It is delicious to taste and enjoyed by non- Indians too. As it is accompanied with bread, this can be a weekend menu or a great entree even if you have a party of ten at home. All it requires is some preparation work by chopping vegetables that can be prepared in advance. Personally, chopping vegetables is a highly therapeutic activity to me, as it brings my wandering mind to focus only on the activity I am doing, and forget about everything else. I enjoy the experience of chopping to the right size and shape, and when I see saw many different colors and varieties in front of me, the artistic mind of mine is highly satisfied via the vegetables color palette in front of me. Readers familiar with this dish are encouraged to add any variations, if I missed out!
What I like about this dish is that as a host, you can just present the various vegetables on the table, and the guests can choose the toppings that they want , giving the guests the choice of personalizing this dish to their taste, and reducing the work of the host. And not to mention the joy of seeing the spread of so many colorful items on the dinner table!
Recipe : For 4 people
Cooking time: 30 min
Preparation time: 15 min
Soaking time: 4-5 hours
Ingredients
- 1 1/3 cup diced tomatoes
- 2 cup shredded cabbage or thinly sliced
- 1/2 cup diced green peppers
- 1 cucumber diced
- 6 green hot or kashmiri chillies
- 1/2 cup finely chopped coriander leaves
- 1/3 cup lemon juice or one lemon juice
- 1/16 tsp baking soda
- 1 1/2 tsp red chilli powder
- 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
- 1 tbsp coriander powder
- 1/4 tsp asofoetida
- salt to taste
- 2/3rd cup oil
- 6 cups of water to cook rajma
- 4 whistles to cook rajma
- 2 more cups of water to be added later on
- 12 buns
- Fine gram floursev for garnish ( optional)
- Butter to grease the buns(optional)
Method:
- Soak the rajma or red kidney beans, after washing thrice for 4-5 hours.
- Add 1/2 tbsp salt and baking soda, 6 cups of water and put to cook in a pressure cooker for 4 whistles on a medium flame.
- Remove from flame and let it cool.
- As soon as the pressure is released, open and transfer to a broader container and put to heat.
- Once it heats up, add asofoetida, turmeric, coriander powder, chilli powder, oil, salt and all the diced vegetables along with lemon juice.
- Stir and cook for 3-4 minutes.
- Garnish with sev.
- Serve warm with buttered bread, plain bread or toasted buns.
Tips
If there is excess water after the red kidney beans are cooked, you can mash a few red kidney beans in the soup so that it will thicken the consistency.
Tomatoes are best, if sliced just before garnishing, as they tend to release the juice and become soft.
I often use V shaped slicer for shredding cabbage, as it makes it quicker and gives me a uniform thickness to cabbage.
Instinct Factor
If you are feeling more colorful, feel free to add some more sweet red and yellow peppers to red kidney beans soup. Since I am used to the taste from India, Green Capsicums were the only choice of capsicum at that point of time.
Look out for the aroma of boiled kidney beans in the whistles to indicate that is done!
Even if the kidney beans are overcooked, they will still taste great in this dish.
Feel Factor
Chases away the chill on a wet rainy or cold day, with the piping hot rajma kidney beans soup with colorful salad and spices. Its a complete meal for an evening with a buttered bread. Has a lot of wow factor when guests see so many colors together and experience the spicy and tangy taste of red kidney beans soup topped with almost raw salad vegetables. Its a happy feeling to relish a highly nutritious and colorful meal.
[contact-form-7 404 "Not Found"]
[shopeat_button]
