Cityplot recipes -3
Rangoli Soup for Reclaim the Seeds
The rangoli design from this year’s Reclaim the seeds festival in Amsterdam
This nutritious and colourful soup recipe using many different beans came from our tradition of creating a rangoli design using beans as colours. We bring out this art form to celebrate seeds every year at the Reclaim the seeds festival in Amsterdam. This year the participants were really creative!
Ingredients
Spice mix
a teaspoon each of:
Whole cumin
Crushed whole coriander
Crushed whole black pepper
Crushed dried red chillies
Paprika powder
Turmeric powder
Garam masala (optional)
Lentils and Beans
500g mix of all the different colours of beans and lentils you can find, perhaps these:
Black beans
Red kidney beans
White navy beans
Yellow split peas
Green split peas
Orange lentils
Chick peas
Stock vegetables
Onion or leeks
Celery
Carrot
Bay leaf
Herbs fresh or dried
Sage
Thyme
Parsley or Coriander
Marjoram
Preparation
Soak the beans and lentils overnight or for 8 to12 hours, drain and rinse well, then boil and simmer in 1 litre of water for 1to 2 hours or until the biggest beans are tender.
While the beans are cooking simmer the stock Some celery stalks, a few carrots, an onion cut in half, one inch piece of ginger, a stalk of lemon grass, bay leaf and the green parts of a leek for 1/2 hour, strain and add to the beans and their cooking liquid.
Saute together in oil and butter, an onion or leek diced or sliced, 3 cloves of garlic minced, a small carrot diced and a stalk of celery diced and the spice mixture. After about 5 minutes, add some salt, and the dried herbs... sage, thyme, marjoram. Saute some more till it's all is very soft and tender and aromatic.
Add this saute mixture to the stock and cooked beans. Serve with a generous squeeze of lime or lemon and chopped fresh parsley to garnish.
This soup with some bread and butter, will serve 6 hungry people as a main dish and many more as a starter.
