Mulligatawny soup recipe: Vegan MoFo

If you thought mulligatawny soup doesn't sound very English, you'd be very, very right.

If popular wisdom is correct, then its origins are in India, in the time of the British Raj in the 18th or 19th century. Its name translates from Tamil as "pepper water" and it comes from a stew that was made in India. It was subsequently adapted for English palates, becoming a soup popular with employees of the British East India Company and remaining from then on a very English dish. Everyday's a school day on Flicking the Vs, no?

Over the centuries, the recipe evolved to become a well-known sweet-sour soup filled with curry spices, chicken and vegetables, sometimes with yoghurt, sometimes without.

As it's travelled through the years, it's become fairly anglicised, with most English recipes calling for generic curry powder, rather than the more interesting blend of Indian spices it presumably once contained.

While both these days and historically, mulligatawny contains meat, apparently the original Indian mulligatawny was a vegetarian dish. This is my vegan take - hopefully somewhere between the Indian and English recipes.

Mulligatawny soup
Makes three to four bowls

Ingredients
One onion, diced
One celery rib, diced
One carrot, peeled and diced
One small apple, peeled and diced
One tomato, diced
700mls vegetable stock
25g rice
25g red lentils
Tablespoon of garam masala
Tablespoon of tomato puree
Tablespoon of tamarind paste
Tablespoon of tomato puree
Teaspoon of ground coriander
Teaspoon of dried coriander leaf
Teaspoon of ground cumin

How you do it
Heat some oil and fry onion, celery, and carrot over a medium heat for five to ten minutes until beginning to soften.
Add tomato, garam masala, cumin, and both corianders and cook for another minute or two.
Add stock, apple, red lentils, tamarind paste, tomato puree and ketchup. Bring to a simmer and cook until the rice and lentils are cooked through - about 10 to 15 minutes.
Serve with vegan yoghurt or chopped coriander if you've got any to hand.