Indian Spiced Tomato Soup: Tamatar Shorba

For the tomatoes, you can use fresh tomatoes or canned, or a mixture of the two, and if you don't get all of the seeds removed, don't have a panic attack, because it won't end civilization. This recipe does not give you an intensely spicy hot soup, but if you like spicy hot foods, you can add a chili pepper or two to the tomatoes before putting them into the blender or processor; and, you can add another teaspoon or two of Indian chili powder (cayenne paper) to the soup, too. You can also add a teaspoon or two of sugar to take some of the edge off of the acidic tomatoes. And it is not totally uncommon for some Indians to add some cream to the soup for a cream of tomato soup.  

 

Ingredients (4 servings):

 

3 cups roughly chopped tomatoes (fresh or canned), seeds removed

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 tablespoons grated ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon Indian chili powder or cayenne pepper

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon ground cardamom

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 1/2 cups vegetable stock

1 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons chopped coriander (aka cilantro)

(optional) 1/3 cup heavy cream  

 

Add the chopped tomatoes to a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. In a pan/pot over medium heat, heat the oil, then add the grated ginger and minced garlic; cook, stirring it around, for about one minute. Add all the other ingredients, except the chopped coriander (cilantro), stir well and bring the mixture to a boil. Adjust heat to maintain a steady simmer for about 12 minutes. Stir in the chopped cilantro and heavy cream (if using), and simmer for just another 1 to 2 minutes. 

 

WORD HISTORY:

Steward (Stewardess)-The first part of this compound is related to "sty" (pen for animals), a word from the Germanic roots of English, and the second part is related to quite a number of words, including: "aware," "beware," "ware" (commonly in the plural, "wares," goods, merchandise), "wary," all from the Germanic roots of English, and to "guard" (verb), a word borrowed from French, which had it from Germanic Frankish (the noun of the same spelling is also from French, and it was formed in French from the verb). The "ste" part of the word goes back to Old English "stig," which later became "sti," and meant "animal pen, pig pen, house, hall," ( hall with its meaning of "room," as in "dining hall, dance hall, beer hall"). The "ward" part goes back to the Old English noun "weard," meaning "guard, watchman." The two parts gave Old English "stigweard," roughly meaning "keeper of a household," often of the Anglo-Saxon nobility, and this then became "stiward," which then became "steward." The Anglo-Norman nobility used the term with similar meaning, but often for "a manager of an entire estate for a noble." The 1400s saw the term also used for "an officer in charge of food and drink on a ship," a meaning that later transferred to trains and airplanes, although now usually replaced in American English with "flight attendant." The family name spelled with an ending 't' is from Scotland, where the royal house was "Stewart," which later Mary, Queen of Scots changed to the French spelling "Stuart" in the 1500s, apparently because her mother was from a French-speaking area of Lorraine, in those times still a part of the Old German Empire. The feminine form "stewardess" (initially "stewardesse?) is from the 1630s simply formed by the suffix "ess(e)" from French, which had it from Latin "issa," from transliterated Greek "issa" (perhaps related to the Old English female denoting suffix "icge" and Dutch "egge." The verb "steward" came from the noun in the first quarter of the 1600s with the meaning "to carry out the duties of a steward." Apparently only Icelandic has a related form of "steward" in the other Germanic languages, "stívarður" (meaning "steward").