Recipe : Beetroot and Raw Mango Clear Soup (Vegan)

Very often when cooking beetroot, we normally just throw away the water in which the beetroots have been boiled.

Given that I have been looking up Ayurvedic (where water that vegetables are boiled in, is also nutritious) and Bengali recipes (which rarely throw away anything as waste), I decided to make a soup with the water this time. It tasted pretty good. The picture is ordinary, but it belies the taste of this nutritious soup.

Ingredients:
1 kg beetroots - cleaned
1 raw mango - roughly chopped (or juice of a lemon - to taste)
1 large onion - quartered
2-4 green chillies to taste - roughly chopped
1 tsp pepper powder
1 tsp chaat masala powder (optional, but it ups the flavours if used)
pinch of chilli powder
salt to taste

Method :
Wash the beetroots thoroughly and cover with enough water in a pressure cooker.
Cook for 3 whistles and let the pressure release on its own.
Remove the beetroots and use in salads or any other recipe of your choice.
If you had washed the beetroots well, there should not be any need to strain the liquid.

To the beetroot liquid in the pressure cooker, add the roughly chopped onions, green chillies and green mangoes.
Also add the salt, pepper powder, chaat masala powder, chilli powder and salt.
Close and pressure cook for 3 whistles.
Let the pressure release and then open the pan.

If you didn't have raw mango to start with, add the lemon juice to taste at this point.

Strain and serve hot.

You can garnish it with coriander leaves if you like, but I personally prefer my soups completely clear.

Kim's Notes:
I cooked the beetroots with the skin on after washing them thoroughly. If you aren't sure how clean your beets are, then you can skin them before you cook them, or just the skin where it seems encrusted in dirt.

Green mangoes are in season and I had a mango left over from pickling that didn't make the cut, as it wasn't crunchy enough. If you don't have raw mangoes on hand, just add lime juice at the end (after pressure cooking the other ingredients)

 If you want to make it a chunky soup. Add a bit of chopped beetroot, after the second round of pressure cooking.