Southern Indian rice & seafood soup
This soup was first cooked for me by Das, my friend who runs the southern Indian restaurants in London called Rasa. I've based mine around his original recipe, and what's fantastic about it is that it's so easy to make. It only takes about 30 minutes, and the other great thing is that the ingredients are not particularly expensive, so it's economical. However, if you want to spend a little more and make it a bit luxurious using something like crab, then you can. The soup is just as good with frozen prawns and flaky white fish though. Use any selection of fish that you fancy – I like to use a good mixture of fresh-looking fish (John Dory, cod, haddock or red mullet all work well). Get it skinned and filleted, then all you have to do is chop it up. If you can find any coconut oil, use that, otherwise vegetable and sunflower oil are fine to use. This really is one of my favourite soups. It's not too hot, but as you eat it you can pick out the individual flavours. And there's something about having rice in a soup that makes it really scrumptious.
Estimated Nutrition (whole recipe, rough)
Counts 13 of 17 ingredients — the other 4 aren't in our nutrition table and contribute nothing above, so the real totals are higher.
What these numbers assume — 13 portions →
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Coconut | 1/2 cup shredded (40g) | 283 |
| Salmon | 100g cooked | 208 |
| Rice | 1 cup cooked (158g) white | 206 |
| Vegetable | 1 tbsp (14g) | 120 |
| Onion | 1 medium (110g) | 44 |
| Lime | juice of 1 lime (44ml) | 11 |
| Turmeric | 1 tsp ground (3g) | 9 |
| Cumin | 1 tsp ground (2.1g) | 8 |
| Black Pepper | 1 tsp ground (2.3g) | 6 |
| Garlic | 1 clove (3g) | 4 |
| Mustard | 1 tsp (5g) yellow | 3 |
| Ginger | 1 tsp grated fresh (2g) | 2 |
| Salt | 1 tsp (6g) | 0 |
| Sunflower Oil | not in our table | 0 |
| Seed | not in our table | 0 |
| Water | not in our table | 0 |
| Coriander | not in our table | 0 |
Totals for the whole recipe, adding one typical portion per ingredient — listed above. Quantities in the recipe are not counted, so this is a rough guide only — not suitable for medical or dietary planning.
Ingredients
- 5 tablespoons vegetable or sunflower oil
- 3 tablespoons brown mustard seeds
- 1 handful fresh curry leaves, picked off their stalks
- 2 teaspoons cumin seeds
- 1 teaspoon garam masala
- 1½ teaspoons chilli powder
- 2 teaspoons turmeric
- 3 red chillies, deseeded and finely sliced
- 2 large thumb-sized pieces fresh ginger, peeled and grated
- 6 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
- 2 onions, peeled and finely chopped
- 2 handfuls basmati rice
- 565 ml water
- 600 g fish, from
- , ask your fishmonger, skinned, filleted and cut into 2-3 inch chunks
- 400 ml light coconut milk
- sea salt
- freshly ground black pepper
- juice of 2 limes
- 1 handful fresh coriander, roughly chopped
- 3 tablespoons freshly grated coconut