Its Friday It Must Be Soup! March 3 Indian Style Yellow Split Pea Soup with Spinach

I am beginning to think I am having a soup identity crisis lately. I am usually ALL about the soup and have no trouble finding soups that speak to me but lately, nothing looks that good. Maybe it's because we haven't really had much in the way of winter weather. It's been mild, we haven't really had any snow that has stuck around for more than a day and if you didn't know what month it was, you would have sworn that we have spent the last 4 months enjoying the very first moments of spring. I find it difficult to get all fired up about making comforting, cold weather foods without the cold weather part and find my mind wandering to Toronto summery thoughts of wood fires, bbqs, wine on the front porch and garbage strikes.



The only things that have been interesting me seem to be Thai coconutty soups or Indian flavoured soups  so I thought it was time to bust out the yellow split peas for some daal. It's not a ground breaking soup by any means but it is simple, it comes together quickly, it's really filling and very tasty. It gets even tastier the next day and I planned to eat this stuff all day, every day until I am licking the jar clean.  Instead of making the soup spicy, I squeezed some siracha on  the top so that I could have mine with some fire and The Kid could have his without because he is still a bit of a wimp when it comes to heat but you could add some finely chopped hot pepper to the soup if you want it hot. It's almost more of a stew than a soup, although you could add more stock and make it thinner if you wanted, but I like it thick and have been enjoying a small bowl every few hours since I made it.

lunch for the rest of the week for me!

Indian Yellow Split Pea Soup With Spinach

1 tbls vegetable oil
1 tbls butter
1 small onion diced
1 tsp ginger puree
1 clove garlic chopped
1 tsp black mustard seed
1 tsp cracked mustard seed
1 tsp tumeric
1 heaping tsp cumin
1/2 tomato, diced
1 small to medium carrot, finely diced
2 tbls basmati rice
3/4 cup yellow split peas
4 cups chicken stock
spinach, washed and roughly chopped

serve with fresh cilantro, greek yogurt and siracha if you want


Heat a soup pot over med heat and add the oil and butter to it. Saute the onion, garlic and ginger until it's nice and soft and just starting to brown a bit. Add the tomato and sauté for a minute. Add the spices and sauté a couple of minutes until you can really smell them strongly. At that point, add the carrot, rice, stock and split peas and let it simmer until the split peas are soft, about 1 1/2 hrs. Cut up your washed, chopped spinach for the last ten minutes of cooking.
Taste and season with salt if needed.