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Vegetarian Box

Due to be sent from 27/05/12

Tomato & Pasilla Chilli Tortilla Soup, Chocolate Pots with Cherries & Mahlab Seed

This light but satisfying summer soup is typically Mexican in the use of dried chillies and spices to give depth, together with the squeeze of lime and raw avocado to lift it and give a really fresh vibrant flavour. Roasting the tomatoes, onion and garlic helps to concentrate the flavours of the fresh ingredients creating a lovely soup with a gentle underlying spiciness made more substantial with the toasted tortilla pieces. Like many Mexican chillies, the Pasilla is actually fairly mild. The flesh has a delicious deeply savoury flavour with hints of liquorice and dried fruit. Here we use the chilli in two different ways – softened and cooked into the soup and toasted until crisp and sprinkled on top.

The mahlab seeds used here are the husked kernels of small wild cherries from the same family of plants as peaches and plums. They have a beautiful flavour of sweet cherry and bitter almond similar to marzipan. They're delicious as used here to perfume a simple dark chocolate pot with some fresh or tinned cherries at the bottom

You Need:

Soup: 1 onion
3 cloves of garlic
2 x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes
1-2 ripe avocados
2 tomatoes
1 lime
100g Wensleydale/ feta cheese/ Mexican queso broken into bite-sized pieces1 pack of tortillas, (not crispy tortilla chips – the large wrap type)

Chocolate Pots: A punnet of fresh cherries or 1 x 400g tin of cherries
80g the best dark chocolate you can get
500ml double cream
5 large egg yolks
50g caster sugar

Spices included:

Soup: Pasilla Chillies

Tortilla Soup Spices: ground cumin, Mexican oregano, ground cinnamon, ancho chilli powder, ground allspice.

Chocolate Pots: Vanilla Pod

Whole Spices: mahlab seeds, cassia flakes.

Preparation time:

soup - 15 minutes plus 30 minutes cooking time

chocolate pots - 20 minutes plus 45 minutes cooking time

Heat rating: 3/5