Veggie soup with spicy meatballs

Once I was talking to my friend and she started mentioning some spicy dishes which made me want to cook something a little more on a hot side.
I found this recipe here but it didn't have any spiciness, so I modified it to my liking.
The soup itself is seasoned with salt and black pepper only and has a warm hearty vegetable flavor. Meatballs are the ones that give this dish a kick. Really yummy.

For the soup you'll need:

1/8 tsp cumin seeds
1/8 tsp coriander seeds
1 big garlic clove
6-7 black pepper corns
1 tbsp oil
1 medium carrot, cut into small cubes or julienned, whatever you like more
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium tomato, chopped
1 small potato (1/2 a big one), chopped
1/2 cup red lentil, washed (I soaked mine for a couple of hours, it just made it easy and faster for lentil to cook)


For the meatballs you'll need:

1 small onion, cut into quarters
1 garlic clove, cut in halves
2 green chilies (small ones), cut lengthwise and seeds removed. This level of heat of quite enough for soup, but if you want to add even more heat, leave chilies with seeds and membranes
350 g mince meat
1 small egg, lightly beaten
almost full 1/4 cup fine bread crumbs
1 tsp salt

Preparation:
soup:
Take first four ingredients, put in the mortar and make paste.
Heat the oil in a big pot (I think mine is about 4 liter), add the spice paste you've just made and fry for a couple of minutes but make sure to stir so that it doesn't burn. Add tomato and onion, and fry on medium heat until onion softens.
When the onion is soft, add about 1/8 salt and carrot, cook for 3 minutes. If you soak lentil, drain it and put in the pot at this point, covering the whole mixture with 4 cups of water. Bring to boil and leave it to simmer on low heat for about 20 minutes.
In the meantime prepare meatballs.
meatballs:
in the food processor or blender chop onion, garlic and chilies very very finely almost into paste. I prefer grinder as the mixture is closed from you. I tried to chop some chilies before using a handheld blender and while giving a stir a piece of chili flew right into my eye. OUCH! So choose wisely.
Add the chili mixture into the mince meat along with an egg and salt, mix until the egg is absorbed. Put in breadcrumbs and mix very well again.

I use gloves during the process as this way I make sure my hands don't have any chili on them.

Divide the mince meat mixture into 4 equal parts and then each prat into quarters again. This way you make sure that all your meatballs have equal size. I get 16 pieces, they are quite big - about 3cm in diameter.

Put meatballs one by one into soup, bring to boil and simmer for about 15 minutes, then add potatoes and boil till they latter are cooked and soft.

And here you go your veggie soup with spicy meatballs is ready.
Oh and one more thing, the soup will become a bit spicier after some time. But oh it is soo good.
Enjoy!!! And leave me a comment of what you think of this recipe.

TIP:
Don't have bread crumbs? no worries Take a couple of pieces of normal bread, toast it a bit to make crunchy, let it cool and process into crumbs in a blender or grinder.

chicken liver with tomatoes

Here is the recipes for chicken liver which is easy and quite fast to make.

You can make it spicy or no heat as you like, add some water almost in the end to make the sauce thinner and dip some pita or naan bread (any flat bread you like).

For this recipe you will need:
2-3 tbsp oil
2 medium onions, chopped
3 garlic cloves, cut into quarters
1/2 tsp ginger powder (or about 5 mm of fresh ginger, cut into small pieces)
1/2 tsp sea salt (table salt will do as well)
1 big tomato
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1/4 tsp chili powder (optional, you can make it even spicier by adding more chili, but be careful with this spice, remember we are making liver with spices, not chili with some other ingredients)
250 g chicken liver, well washed and cut into halves or quarters
a few stems of fresh coriander (optional)

Preparation:
In a medium size pot (I used a 2 liter one) heat the oil over medium heat, add onions and fry till the onions are soft and somewhat golden brown in color. Watch carefully as they tend to burn quickly, stir frequently and do not raise the heat to fasten the process.

Meanwhile put garlic and salt in mortar and make paste, add ginger powder half way through. if using fresh ginger just add at once along with garlic and salt. I like using freshly made garlic and ginger paste as it has great flavor unlike store-bought, however, if you are in a hurry or don't want to make paste you can use ready made from the shop (about 1 - 1.5 tsp I guess).
Here is how my garlic-ginger-salt paste looked:

When onion turn golden brown add the garlic mix, stir for a couple of minutes. Add tomato and cook until the tomato begins to soften. Add turmeric and chili and continue cooking till everything is well mixed and turns into paste.
You basically want to get from this

to this

and finally to this

Once this paste is done, add chicken liver and stir on high heat to seal it. Lower the heat back to medium and cook till the liver is cooked through but still soft. Do not overcook as it will become hard and chewy. Add more salt to taste if you like.

Basically that's it. Transfer to a serving bowl, chop the coriander and sprinkle on top. Serve with freshly cut vegetables and flat bread like naan or pita.

Enjoy!!!

Let me know if you made it and how it was.

That's all...

till the next post byeeeee.