My Grandma’s Applause-Worthy Tomato-Coconut Soup Is Prepared in Simply 15 Minutes

One among my favourite meals to eat is the comforting tomato-coconut soup that my grandmother used to prepare dinner for me at any time when I visited her in Maharashtra at her residence on India’s west coast. It is often known as saar all through India, which suggests “soup” in Marathi. However my grandma at all times referred to it as “santosh,” which in Sanskrit means “contentment.” I’ve at all times thought this identify was effectively suited: The creamy coconut milk paired with candy–tart tomatoes and ghee creates a velvety soup that makes me very content material certainly. 

As knowledgeable chef, I’ve cooked my grandmother’s tomato-coconut soup many instances over time. The primary time was again in 2007 for my first catering gig at my ex-husband’s boss’s Christmas celebration, the place I served it as the primary course of the dinner. It was so effectively acquired that everybody clapped as we toasted my grandmother, who was 8,700 miles away in India. 

A number of years after that, I put the soup on the menu of my first pop-up restaurant. One visitor loved it a lot that a couple of months later, she referred to as me to cater her household Christmas dinner and requested for my grandmother’s soup. I cooked her household’s Christmas dinner for years after, and yearly they requested this tomato-coconut soup on the menu. 

Streamlining My Grandmother’s Tomato-Coconut Soup Recipe

Cooking the recipe the best way my grandmother did—boiling, peeling, and seeding recent tomatoes and making recent coconut milk from scratch—was not sensible for catering giant scale events in my California kitchen. So over time I’ve made changes to her recipe, particularly calling for canned tomatoes and coconut milk instead of recent, to create this simple, one-pot recipe I’m sharing beneath. 

With these two adjustments, the soup shouldn’t be solely simpler to make, however it may be made any time of 12 months, even when recent tomatoes aren’t in season. Having used many manufacturers of canned tomatoes on this soup over time, I imagine that actual Italian San Marzano tomatoes work finest, because of their constant sweetness and taste (beware that not all canned tomatoes with the phrases “San Marzano” on the label are literally the true ones from Italy). Simply keep in mind to take away any basil leaves from the can earlier than utilizing the tomatoes. 

As for the kind of coconut milk, I’ve experimented with full-fat and low-fat coconut lotions and milks, and I discover full-fat coconut milk has the perfect taste and viscosity for this dish; coconut cream is simply too wealthy and low-fat milk is simply too skinny. 

One other distinction between my grandmother’s model of the soup and mine is the kind of onion used. My grandmother at all times used Indian onions, that are smaller and sweeter than American white, purple, and yellow onions. One of the best alternative is shallots. They’re about the identical measurement and have comparable allium taste to the onions my grandmother would use when making this soup in India.

As soon as the shallots are softened, chile powder is added with the blended-and-strained tomato combination, adopted by the coconut milk. When including the coconut milk, watch out to not carry the soup to a boil. This eliminates any threat of the fats within the coconut milk separating and swimming pools of coconut oil forming on the floor.

The ultimate santosh doesn’t style like a typical American tomato soup. It’s gentle and silky with a balanced taste that’s enhanced with delicate warmth from the ginger, shallots and chile powder. In Maharashtra, the soup is commonly eaten combined into white rice or with bits of chapati or different griddle bread dipped into it, and for my part it’s positive to carry contentment in each chunk.

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