Saturday night has traditionally become soup night here at The Madhouse. It's about the only meal (besides barbecue) that Madhouse Daddy cooks and it's usually vegetable soup so it's a great way of clearing out any veggies that are still lurking in the fridge from the week before. Last night, I told him I wanted to try the Black Bean Soup from the Kitchen Nomad box instead though. You can see the recipe on their website, created by Thomasina "Tommi" Miers, who is the founder of the Wahaca chain of Mexican street food restaurants and 2005 MasterChef winner.
The Mexican-themed Kitchen Nomad box contained all the exotic ingredients I'd need : Mexican dried oregano, bay leaves, ancho chillies, cooked black beans and chipotle sauce.
The Mexican oregano looks very similar to regular oregano but has a more robust flavour. The ancho chillies are quite mild with a slightly sweet, smoky flavour.
Here's what the black beans look like once they've been drained. I'm sure they could be replaced with red kidney beans, which are much easier to get hold of and have a similar taste and texture.
I was delighted to see that Madhouse Daddy took over on this one !
It's a really simple, throw-it-all-in-the-pot recipe that is not only quick but also absolutely delicious. The spices, beans, onions and tomatoes create the ultimate warming comfort food. (We used tinned plum tomatoes, as it was what I had to hand, and it worked fine and meant that we didn't even need to whizz it with a blender.)
After adding the stock (we used a Knorr vegetable stock pot and boiling water), you only need to leave it to simmer for about 15 minutes for the flavours to develop.
The proper recipe suggests topping it with feta and coriander, but we decided to keep the feta for trying out the soft baked feta recipe (that I'll tell you about later in the week) and sprinkled on some gruyere instead.
We'd reduced the quantity of anchos chilli from three tablespoons to two and added a spoonful of the chipotle sauce which has a lovely smoky almost bbq flavour, so our soup was only mildly spiced, but you can make this as hot or as mild as you like. It is utterly delicious, perfect for keeping out the winter chill, and we'll definitely be making it again.
Disclosure : I received a discounted Kitchen Nomad subscription in order to keep you up to date with their latest boxes.
I'm joining in with the World Cup recipe challenge over on the Cooking Around The World blog
That will work for me.
ReplyDeleteMildly spiced for me please! Cannot do too hot, my eyes start streaming at once.
ReplyDelete