Red kidney bean soup

1 Recipe

Ingredients

Quantity Ingredient
1 tablespoon Vegetable oil
1 medium Onion, sliced
4 eaches Garlic cloves, crushed
1 medium Carrot, sliced
2 tablespoons Red chiles, chopped, fresh*
½ teaspoon Thyme
2 tablespoons Parsley
2 eaches Bay leaves
½ cup Tomatoes, finely chopped
3 teaspoons Tomato paste
1 cup Red kidney beans, soaked
7 cups Vegetable stock
Salt & pepper
½ tablespoon Nutritional yeast, optional+

Directions

Heat oil in a large soup pot. Stir in the onions, garlic and carrots.

Cover & sweat over low heat for 5 minutes. Add the chiles and herbs, stir well & continue to cook, covered, for a further 5 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes, tomato paste & kidney beans. Mix well, ensure that the heat is very low, & cook for 3 to 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Pour in the stock, season with salt & pepper & bring to a boil. When at a full rolling boil, let it boil hard for 5 minutes, then reduce the heat & simmer until the beans are tender. The length of time will vary, depending upon the age of the beans, from 50 minutes, to 2 hours. When cooked, turn off the heat, stir in the nutritional yeast, if desired & let cool.

Once cool, transfer the soup, in batches, to a food processor or blender & blend until very smooth. Return to a clean pot & gently re-heat. Serve with good, home-made bread. It will also work with a good, hearty flat bread, if that's not too much of a contradiction in terms. Try a Native flat bread, for example.

* I'm experimenting with fresh chiles rather than dry ones, I find the flavour to be intense, but I find that I may be over doing the quantities, so reduce the amount if you prefer less hot food. If you do not have fresh, a good guideline is to use dried in the following quantities: 1 dried chile gives a mild flavour; 2 give a medium heat; 3 will be hot; then there's people like me & others who will go up from there, depending upon taste. The trick is to use only enough chiles so that the other tastes are not masked.

+ This is optional. It's another area of experimenting. I find that a little nutritional yeast in pureed foods, or in "cream" sauces, gives added creaminess to dishes. It is entirely up to the cook.

Recipe by Mark Satterly.

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