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| Piri Piri Vegetable Bean Soup with Brown Basmati Rice |
Back to the Piri Piri blend. First of all, piri piri (or peri peri) is pepper pepper in Swahili. You can read up on the origins back to Portugal and so on, but basically, it's the delicious African Bird's Eye Chili (pepper). This particular blend exudes the amazing flavors of South Africa . . . paprika, black pepper, ginger, garlic, onion, cinnamon, cumin, coriander, turmeric, sesame, oregano, cardamom, nutmeg and mace. I KID YOU NOT, I added this blend to a pot of soup and I was instantly hooked! It was love at first waft, not to mention first slurp. I was making a pot of what my brother Lou calls "Got-To-Go" Soup, meaning, everything's got to go (like whatever's in the fridge and whatever else that's in the pantry or on the shelf that needs to be consumed while it's still fresh). I had a hankering for a great bowl of soup yesterday.
So, I started with a little bit of olive oil in the bottom of my favorite soup pot. I added sliced shallots (about 4 large) that I had from the farmer's market. They were beautiful. I added one medium, roughly chopped sweet onion, a large sliced carrot, a few bay leaves and about a quarter of a head of purple (red) cabbage, thinly sliced. After letting everything cook with a bit of kosher salt, pepper and cayenne, I added one large can of whole tomatoes, with their juice, crushed by hand, one 48 ounce box of Swanson 100% fat free chicken broth, one 32 ounce box of Swanson Organic Vegetable broth, a few new yellow potatoes, cut into large cubes (unpeeled) and about a heaping 1/2 cup of brown Basmati rice. Remember, this soup was all about what I had on hand. I love cooking "off the shelf". I also added about 1/2 can of water (to rinse out the tomato can). This is when I decided to go for it with the Piri Piri blend. On one hand, I was worried about "ruining" a whole pot of soup with an unknown outcome. On the other hand, I was ready to try something new. So, I added about a heaping teaspoon of the delectable mix. It smelled fabulous and the broth tasted fabulous, like immediately! I let the soup come to a boil and let it continue to boil (or high simmer) until the rice and potatoes were tender. This actually took 20-30 minutes, I think, for the rice to really cook. During this time, I tasted the soup several times because I LOVED the flavor. I adjusted the salt and added more cayenne pepper and black pepper. It tasted so delicious, I added about another heaping teaspoon of the Piri Piri blend. The last thing I added was one can of rinsed and drained cannelini beans and one can of rinsed and drained black beans. I usually add canned beans to soups last since they are already cooked. They just need to heat through. Once the rice was tender, the soup had thickened nicely from the rice and potatoes and the beans made the soup even more filling and healthy. I CANNOT wait to experiment further with these incredibly fragrant and flavorful spices. I want to make another pot of soup now but I may try something else like Piri Piri Grilled Chicken or something. I know this will be an addiction. OK. Don't tell anyone but I actually ate like 4 bowls of soup. They were small. Not. It was impossible to stop. That happens.
So, here's the moral of the story. Try something new today or this weekend when you have a chance to cook from scratch. Changing up your spices can transport you to a different country with a shake. You can go to the Far East, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, India, South America, or in this case, South Africa, in a pinch! (or a teaspoon) : ) --------- xo
Heat up your life - and your soup,
Love,
Katie
This just in: After I published this post, I was back in KPK concocting another simmering pot of exotica using the Vadouvan spice blend, fresh spinach, multi-colored organic quinoa and chick peas. OMG I can't wait to tell you about it . . . when I get back from Pondicherry. PEACE!
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