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Mulligatawny Soup

November 26th, 2011

Sometimes, late at night, when I m suffering a bout of insomnia, I will flip channels. The night before Thanksgiving happened to be one of those nights, and at 2:30 I considered myself terribly lucky to stumble over a Seinfeld rerun.

I am a die-hard Seinfeld fan. I always watch the reruns and every once in a while, I am lucky enough to come across one that I haven’t seen before, and those are like little jewels!

So Wednesday night I watched the soup na*i episode. I’ve seen it like a million times- but still live it. Everyone know what I’m talking about?

Which got me thinking about his Mulligatawny soup. I have only had Mulligatawny soup once- one of my closest friends of almost 20 years, Missy, brought me a big vat that she and her mom, Merriann, made for me after I had Coco. I just remembered curry, apple and chicken soup- no specifics.

Marriann recently gave me the recipe for the soup, along with the recipe for beer bread. Like all soups, I read up and realized how many variations there were on this soup. But I was right, it is pretty consistent with the curry, apples and chicken- also cream. I thought I would try my hand at it with my own version. I swapped the apple for pear, and the chicken for the remains of my Thanksgiving turkey. I also added some rice for a bit more substance and texture.

I think this soup is incredible in flavor and richness. As I write this, I am already several bowls deep, and have been dipping hunks of buttered beer bread into the soup.

(anybody else been looking at this for the last few days?)

If you have a sad turkey carcass sitting in your fridge right now- get out your soup pot- you will love this!

Mulligatawny Soup, serves 12
-2 cups turkey pan drippings or leftover gravy
or
-1 cup melted butter, 1 Tbs tomato paste and 1 Tbs flour, 1 cup chicken stock)
-2 cups turkey pieces
-1 yellow onion, diced
-2 carrots, diced
-4 stalks celery diced
-1 large pear, diced
-1 ½ cups long grain white rice
-8 cups chicken stock
-4 Tbs curry powder

-1 cup cream
-2 tsp salt
-fresh thyme
-freshly cracked black pepper to taste

1) In a large pot, bring the pan drippings to a simmer. (Alternatively whisk together the flour, melted butter and tomato sauce, and then whisk in stock until smooth.)

2) Add the turkey bits and simmer on low for 5 minutes, letting everything brown.

3) Add the onions, celery, carrots and pear, stir and let cook, stirring the bottom of the pan for about 5 minutes.

4) Add the rice, and stir to coat the rice.

5) Stir in the curry powder, and add the thyme.

6) Add the stock and stir well, scraping all the browned bits from the bottom of the pot.

7) Put a lid on the pot and simmer on low for about 20-30 minutes or until the rice is soft.

8) Stir in 1 cup of heavy cream and season with salt and pepper.

9) Garnish with fresh unsweetened cream, mint and pomegranate seeds.

10) Serve with a fresh, hot slab of beer bread!