Raw Vegan Mango Fruit Soup
Flickr is a great place to learn photography. Vera, is an excellent food photographer, has a beautiful blog and is one of my recent flickr friends. Flickr is also a good place to learn cooking, styling and to make friends across the globe. Her blog is written in Hungarian and I don't understand a word of it, but the pictures convey more than words. You just need to email her requesting the recipe in English and she responds with the English version.
I could not resist the temptation of the strawberry coconut milk soup she made some time back and wanted to have a big slurp right then. But Mumbai was already rushing into Summer and strawberries were out of question. The flavours were interesting, tempting and extremely 'Kerala' (read appealing). I saw it made with mangoes (in my mind's eye) and I knew this is one soup my Grandfather would have loved very much.
My mother always says he was very strict and distant. We never saw that side of him. My guess is that retirement from playing the role of the provider brought out the child in him.
He taught us to make dolls out of candy wrappers.
He taught us to pound the ball and sing 'ondara dakkara dakkara dun.....', a limerick he sang as a child(I have added the Tamil limerick at the end of this post in case you are interested in knowing it). We would try to beat him but he would manage to get more bounces out of the ball without missing a single dribble.
He taught us to play 28, a card game and even as I write I remember very well how he would scatter the cards when he knew he was going to lose, how he used to exalt with pride when he won. I remember him when I see my son jumping out of his chair vicariously enjoying a game of cricket on TV. My grandfather would go berserk when a fielder missed a potential catch.
He loved chewing betel leaves with a fair amount of good tobacco.
He loved good food, especially Kerala cuisine.
And he always loved his mangoes as an accompaniment with curd and rice, the last course of a South Indian meal when mangoes are in season.
This soup I am sure would have won his approval and that was a tough one.
The soup could have been very well a shake too, if you perceived it so. The sharp sweetness of mangoes are smoothed by the kiss of coconut milk and topped with sweet coconut cream. A happy, peaceful union - this one! I had promised to post something I made with the coconut cream and coconut butter last time. This is it.
For the original strawberry soup recipe which served as an inspiration, please visit Vera here. Do you know Hungarian?
Dish for the day: Raw Vegan Mango Fruit Soup
Serves: 4
Raw Vegan Mango Fruit Soup
Ingredients:
Ripe, juicy mangoes, preferably without fiber (I used kesar variety) - Scooped to measure 3 level cups. Kesar is a very sweet and deeply yellow variety of mango.
Thick coconut milk (First extract) - 1 cup
Caster sugar - 2 tbsp.
Kala namak/black salt or pink salt - to taste
Dry mint leaves - To garnish
Coconut cream - 1 tsp. for each serving, to garnish
Optional - Retain a few rough chunks of mangoes to add to the soup
Method:
Mash the mangoes with a 'pav-bhaji' masher for a rough texture till coarsely juiced like I did or juice in a blender for a smoother consistency.
Add the coconut milk and fold into the 'soup'.
Add a pinch of kala namak/black salt or pink salt as per taste.
Garnish with coconut cream and serve cold.
We had almost two helpings each as it was irresistible. I said to myself, "A dessert soup".
What do you say?
Updated: 06.07.10 - This goes to Yasmeen's Tropical Temptations Challenge.Labels: Coconut cream and coconut butter, Coconut milk, Harini P, Mangoes, Raw Vegan, Raw vegan mango fruit soup, Sunshinemom, Tongue ticklers, Vegan Recipes, vegan soup, Vegan soup recipe
