Hot, Heartening Soups

Soups are a comfort food in the blow hot, blow cold weather. They also work as a medicine for a person down with cold, flu and cough as they are power-packed with nutrients, courtesy all the vegetables we add to them, are soothing to an irritated throat, and a runny nose and bets of all are filling too. We get you 3 recipes to try.

Tomato and Carrot Soup
Ingredients:
4 medium to large tomatoes, cut in medium pieces
1 medium sized carrot, peeled and cut in pieces
1 teaspoon of ghee or oil
½ teaspoon sugar (according to taste)
Salt to taste
Black Pepper about a pinch
For tadka
1/2 teaspoon cumin seed (jeera)
Pinch of asafetida
1 tablespoon finely chopped green coriander
Method
1. Boil tomatoes and carrots in a pressure cooker. We are using pressure cooker for the carrots to soften up. After the fourth whistle switch off the gas knob.
2. Pour out the tomatoes and carrots in a soup strainer with a vessel kept at the bottom of the strainer to drain out the soup water.
3. Allow it to cool.
4. In a mixer add tomatoes and carrots, this will become like a thin to thick creamy paste. Add this in the vessel that contains the extra soup water.
5. Put the vessel on the stove. Bring to boil. Add salt to taste, black pepper and sugar as per your adjustment.
6. Let the soup boil. In a frying pan, add 1 tablespoon oil or ghee, jeera and asafoetida. Add this in tomato soup.
7. Garnish with green coriander and serve with toast.
Tip: To make it more wholesome for your kids, add butter on the toast.

Beetroot, Tomato and Carrot soup
Want your kids cheeks to be rosy and soft. Try beetroot. If your child does not have beetroot in a salad, add it in your soup. Beetroot for ages has been associated with increasing haemoglobin levels and stamina.
Ingredients:
½ Beetroot
3 large to medium sized tomatoes, cut into medium sized pieces
1 medium carrot, cut into pieces
1 teaspoon of ghee or oil
½ teaspoon sugar (according to taste)
Salt to taste
Black Pepper about a pinch
For tadka
1/2 teaspoon cumin seed (jeera)
Pinch of asafetida
1 tablespoon finely chopped green coriander
Method
1. Boil beetroot, tomatoes and carrots in a pressure cooker. We are using pressure cooker for the carrots and beetroot to soften up. After the fourth whistle switch off the gas knob.
2. Pour out the beetroot, tomatoes and carrots in a soup strainer with a vessel kept at the bottom of the strainer to drain out the soup water.
3. Allow it to cool.
4. In a mixer add beetroot, tomatoes and carrots, this will become like a thin to thick creamy paste. Add this in the vessel that contains the extra soup water.
5. Put the vessel on the stove. Bring to boil. Add salt to taste, black pepper and sugar as per your adjustment.
6. Let the soup boil. In a frying pan, add 1 tablespoon oil or ghee, jeera and asafoetida. Add this in the soup.
7. Garnish with green coriander.

Chicken and Mushroom soup
Have a child down with cold? Then try chicken soup—something all our mothers, grandmothers, swear by. And if you have a fussy eater, who doesn’t like chicken, here is a way to sneak it in.
Ingredients:
1 large piece of chicken
3-4 cloves of garlic
Half inch piece of ginger
Salt and pepper to taste
5-6 button mushrooms
2-3 button mushrooms, chopped, sauted in butter, for garnishing
1 tbsp white sauce (or make fresh by roasting maida in butter and then adding milk.)
Butter to taste
Cheese for garnishing
Method
1) Boil chicken, garlic pieces, ginger in enough water to give you a stock. Flavour with salt and pepper. Drain stock and keep aside.
2) In a pan, heat butter. Cut mushrooms and sauté in butter. Once mushrooms give a nice fragrance, blend them to a paste in a mixer, using just a tsp of water/stock.
3) In another pan, put the white sauce, and to this add the chicken stock and blended mushrooms. Boil and then simmer (covered) to let all flavours blend in together. Add stock as per desired consistency.
4) Garnish with salt and pepper; take off heat and add chopped mushrooms over it. Grate some cheese into hot soup. Serve.
Note: You can also garnish it with chicken balls, made from steamed and minced chicken, made into balls and added to the soup.

Picture source: Creative Commons