Family Recipes

It's fall and I am giving into my craving for hearty soups and stews that just taste so good in the cool crisp fall season. And today I thought I'd share a family recipe.  Our family recipes have always been a little interesting. While our family's heritage is Dutch, the fact that my dad grew up in India and my mom's side had several generation live in Indonesia, many of our family recipes have South East Asian/Indian flavours.  And this weekend I was craving my grandma's mulligatawny (we just call it Mul) soup.

Out of interests sake I looked up some authentic mulligatawny recipes and my grandmothers is far from it, but that makes it all the more special.  My grandmas version is a chicken and lentil soup with a plethora of spices severed over rice with salt and lemon.   I have great memories of entering our house on a cold day and smelling the Mul on the stove.  My mom always cooks it in my grandma's old orange cast iron pot and I carry on the tradition with my own orange pot and I feel my grandma would be proud.

It's one of Colin's and my favourite soups, subtle flavours that are brought out with just the right about of salt and lemon sprinkled over it.  The salt is a crucial step to bring out the flavours, so if your bowl of soup isn't punching in you in the face with flavour add a little salt at a time to get it just right, you'll know when you there.

Here it is!

Oma's Mul

2 onions sliced
1 tbsp butter
a whole chicken
2 cups green lentils
1 tsp salt
1 tsp powdered ginger
2 tbsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground mustard
1 tsp turmeric
one onion with three whole cloves stuck into it
1 bay leaf
1 stick of cinnamon
4 cloves of garlic sliced
1 tsp cayenne pepper
2 cups or one can coconut milk
Lemon wedges and salt to pass around

Start my caramelizing the onions in the butter, set a side

Place chicken, lentils and all the spices in a large pot and add enough water to cover the chicken (mine doesn't always cover the chicken so I flip it half way during cooking).

Bring the pot to a boil and simmer for an hour or until the meat falls off the bone.

Remove the onion with cloves and discard the cloves.  Remove chicken and take meat off the bones.  Remove the bay leaf and cinnamon stick.

Return only the onion to the soup and with a wand blender blend the soup to a smooth constancy.

Return chicken to pot.

Add the caramelized onions and coconut milk.  Bring back to temperature and serve over rice with wedges of lime and extra salt!