Mulligatawny soup with chicken, rice and lime

A most delicious comfort food from The Bean Bible, by, aptly named, Aliza Green, mulligatawny soup is well worth the time it takes to prepare. One pound of chicken thighs was boiled for 20 minutes in soup stock. The chicken was then removed, and cut into pieces once it was cool enough to handle. Meanwhile, I chopped two garlic cloves, the hunk of ginger I had in my refrigerator, 2 jalapeno peppers, and 2 onions. All of this was sauteed in six tablespoons of butter in my indespensible cast-iron skillet. To this I added a teaspoon of cumin, a 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric, a teaspoon of dried cilatro, and one teaspoon of mustard (all of the spice measurements deviate somewhat from the recipe, based on our personal preferences, and what we already had on hand). This mix was placed in the soup pot, along with one pound of lentils. After it was heated to a boil, the heat was turned down to simmer for one hour. I also cooked 3 cups of rice in a separate pan during this time. I allowed the soup to cool for about 15 minutes then poured it, by batches, into my blender to puree. Then, back into the soup pot where the cooked rice was added, along with the chicken and juice of three limes. We did not top our servings with nigella seeds as the recipe indicates, as James could not find them under any of the names given in the recipe book (nigella, kalonji, or charnushka).

This took over two hours to prepare, and there was quite a bit of clean up involved as well. Once everything was served we had to wash a saucepan, skillet, stock pot, juicer (ours is manual, not electric), blender, 2 cutting boards, and various utensils, in addition to our dinner dishes. As I said, well worth it. This spicy meal was filling and delicious, and left our home with a tantalizing aroma that we are still enjoying today.