Recipe : Spicy Ginger Lemon Soup (Vegan Option too)

This is a lovely, very easy to make Soup from Jigyasa & Pratibha's "Sukham Ayu - Cooking at Home with Ayurvedic Insights"

Its perfect for Winter or the Monsoons, or anytime you just want a quick easy to digest soup for dinner. It doesn't need any stock or pre-preparation, and is is ready in 30 minutes or so.

The Recipe calls for 2 green chillies, but I used 5, because we like our food spicy.

Ingredients :
1/4 cup Split red or green gram (masoor or moong dhal)
2 inch ginger crushed (try and keep it whole, so you can remove the whole piece, rather than straining it)
5 green chillies slit (adjust to spice tolerance)
pinch of turmeric powder (haldi)
powdered rock salt to taste (rock salt is recommended in Ayurveda, but you can use regular salt, if you don't have rock salt)

1 tsp coriander leaves chopped
1 tbsp lemon juice or to taste (I used half a lemon)

To Temper :
1 tsp Cows Ghee (Cow's Ghee is Ayurvedic, to make it vegan, use any neutral oil of your choice)
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp cumin seeds (jeera)
pinch of asafoetida (hing)
7-8 curry leaves

Method :
Wash and pressure cook the gram to a soft consistency. The trick is to use just enough water to cook it, so that the gram can get completely disintegrated (about 4-5 whistles?)

Add ginger, chillies, turmeric powder, salt and 2 cups of water and simmer for 5-7 minutes. Strain and return to flame to simmer . (I just removed the ginger, but let the chillies remain)

In your tempering pan, heat the ghee, pop the mustard. Reduce the flame and add jeera, hing and curry leaves. Pour the tempering over the simmering soup.

Switch off the flame and add lemon juice and coriander leaves. Serve hot.

Optional:
My husband wanted more substance in his soup, so before adding the tempering, I added a 1/2 cup of quartered cabbage leaves and let it simmer for about a minute before adding the seasoning.