Berbere Spiced Vegetable Soup and Cheese Sandwich

Berbere spiced vegetable soup is a spicy, hearty soup for cold winter nights. Soup has medley of vegetables, chickpeas and is seasoned with berbere spice.

The second dinner idea for this week is berbere spiced vegetable soup with a spicy cheese sandwich. I had some leftover berbere spice after making this stew and used it to spice the soup.

I was out of bouillon and didn’t have any homemade stock at home. I felt using water instead of stock might not be very flavorful. To enhance the flavor, used this Ethiopian spice. If one doesn’t have berbere, I would recommend using stock or bouillon cube to enhance the flavor of the soup.

I served it with a spicy cheese sandwich. It was a filling meal. I first made the soup over the weekend for my dinner and this is the iPhone picture of the soup. I added some shrimp for protein and didn’t use potato & tomato. For the sake of the pictures, I made it again couple of days ago.

Total Time: 25 – 30 minutes
Preparation: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 15 – 20 minutes
Serves: 1

Ingredients:

• 1 – 2 tsp. Oil
• ½ small Red Onion Sliced, about ¼ cup
• ½ – ¾ tsp. Ginger Garlic Paste
• 2 small Green Chilies, chopped (adjust to heat tolerance level)
• 1 small Potato, cut in half and sliced, about ¼ cup after slicing
• ¼ cup sliced Carrots
• ¼ cup sliced Red Radish (3 small red radish)
• ¾ tsp. Berbere Spice (adjust to taste)
• Salt to Taste
• ½ small Tomato, chopped
• ½ – ¾ cup Stock (I used water)
• ¼ – ½ cup cooked Chickpeas (I used ½ cup and felt it was a bit too much)
• Handful of Kale, chopped (about 1 cup moderately packed chopped kale)

Preparation:

• Heat oil in a pan. Add onions and saute until soft.
• Add ginger garlic paste, chilies, potatoes, saute until raw smell of the ginger is gone.
• Cover and cook on medium low flame until potatoes are semi cooked. Sprinkle some water if the pan burns.
• Increase the flame, add carrots, radish, tomato and saute for a minute.
• Add water, salt, berbere spice, stir, cover and bring the soup to boil and cook for couple of minutes.
• Add chickpeas, kale, cover and continue cooking until kale is cooked. This will take about 4-6 minutes, at least.
• Adjust seasoning and serve hot.

Note:

• If you do not have berbere spice, use stock and season with black pepper powder.
• Use vegetables of your choice. I usually use a combination of these vegetables; beans, carrots, celery, radish, cauliflower and spinach instead of kale. If using spinach, add just two minutes before turning off the stove because spinach cooks very fast. I like mushrooms but for some reason, didn’t find it flavorful in this soup.
• Cooked cannellini beans, sprouted moong or any cooked beans are a good substitutes for chickpeas.

Spicy Cheese Sandwich
Ingredients:

• 2 Slices of Bread
• 1 – 1 ½ tsp. Chutney (I used tomato green bell pepper chutney. I replaced red peppers with green peppers in this recipe and added some peanuts as well.)
• 1 slice Cheese

Preparation:

• Spread chutney on one side of each slice of bread.
• Sandwich the cheese slice between two slices with chutney side between the cheese and toast the sandwich in a frying pan, on both sides.
• Serve warm.

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