A steaming blood soup for the vampires

a polarizing ingredient + halloween indifference + decoration drool

Halloween was confusing to my immigrant parents so much so that they completely avoided participating in it, despite having two young children. I, on the other hand, would longingly look at costumed co-students at my school wishing I would get one too.

One year I begged my parents to let me dress up but they did not want to waste any money on a new one-time-wear piece of clothing. They ‘gently’ persuaded me into going as an Indian princess and wearing one of my ethic dresses I already owned. I think they were pretty proud of this because they thought they had effectively tricked me without hurting my feelings. No, mom and dad, it was obvious. I chose to be tricked instead of treated because it was the only way I could ‘blend in’ with the other kids in their costumes on halloween.

To my surprise, the Indian princess ‘costume’ was a hit. My friends and other kids were drawn to the sparkly satin outfit that made me literally shine. I suspect they had never seen an Indian outfit before and the novelty of it awed them. The irony is that it also helped me get some ‘cred’ at school, even though I considered ethic outfits ‘lame’ back then.

Fast forward through several years ahead where the only costume my parents entertained was the Indian princess and I (and other kids) grew tired of it. I just stopped dressing up. My parents confusion for halloween turned into my indifference for this holiday.

The only thing I remember my parents liking about Halloween were the neighborhood decorations. They loved their evening walks during the month of October as diverse spooky decor in front yards brought them many smiles, especially when some neighbors went all out. My parents chuckled away on their walks, probably like many other immigrants, for two reasons:

1) the creativity of the decor was endless, their neighbors were admirable

2) they were glad to enjoy the delights of halloween without spending a dime

I have spent most of my adult life in bigger cities living in small apartments where the halloween decoration game is pretty abysmal compared to a suburban neighborhood. I spent each halloween admiring the costumes of my colleagues from a distance, eating some candy here and there, and expressing an indifferent ‘aww’ at the minimal decorations outside apartment doors or desks at work. Recently I moved to a suburban neighborhood in a smaller city. Halloween was completely off my radar until the end of September.

I went for a morning walk one day and noticed my new neighborhood has absolutely brought it when it comes to Halloween. Nearly all houses have decorations in their front yards exploding with creativity and spookiness. There are ghosts floating in the air, spiders and their webs crawling up chimneys, tombstones to make you shudder, ghoulish creatures creeping at you, skeletons dancing away in the wind, invitations into the witches dens, all wondering whether you’ll chose to trick or treat. All these were so elaborately executed that I started to experience ‘decoration drool.’ I eagerly began looking forward to my morning walks this October as each day I would notice new details and be flabbergasted by the dedication of creative minds in my neighborhood. This has honestly been the easiest way I have accomplished my steps goals this month!

While my indifference towards halloween may take a long time to fully convert, I was inspired this October to create a dish. I felt I could participate in this holiday in a small way since I love tinkering in the kitchen.

• My first thought went to dessert since they are easy to decorate with nearly any theme. Some cupcakes or cookies with shapes and decorations that honor halloween fleetingly swept my mind. However, I don’t have a big sweet tooth so dismissed this idea pretty quickly. I wanted to make a savory dish.

• My next idea was to play with the black spaghetti/pasta, aka pasta infused with squid ink. I imagined deep black spaghetti laced with red tomato sauce might be apt. Unfortunately I did not have any in the pantry and could not find it in my local stores.

• The red tomato sauce idea lingered in my brain for a bit and I gravitated towards a smokey tomato soup. But, this seemed like cheating. I make tomato soups all the time and it didn’t feel ‘special’ or honoring halloween with a new dish.

• The days are starting to get colder and I could not get the soup idea out of my head. Soups provide so much warmth and comfort. Finally, as I was browsing the grocery store, I saw an ingredient, and a light bulb moment happened. I will make a blood soup!

Blood Soup

The ingredient that inspired me for this soup was the humble beet, often a polarizing ingredient. Although, I think beets truly deserve only love. They are earthy, hearty, eye catching, and nutritious. My local store had gorgeous bulbs of red beets still attached to their red veined and red hued greens. They were practically begging me to be bought (as happens often with me when it comes to vegetables).

Prep the beets: I decided to use all parts of the beets - the greens and the bulb. I separated and washed the beet greens thoroughly, changing water about 4 times, to get rid of all the dirt and then chopped up the greens. I peeled the beet bulbs and chopped them into small pieces.

Note: the beet greens are optional. If you want some of the greens flavor along with the fiber and nutrients, feel free to add them in, otherwise use them for something else (like a delicious saag). Omitting the greens will yield a more silky textured blood soup.

Soften the beets: In order to get a smoothly textured soup it is important to soften the beets and greens as much as possible. I accomplished this in an instant pot with enough water to cover the ingredients, adding salt to taste, and pressure cooking for 10 mins with natural release.

Note: the 10 mins was probably overkill but I wanted these to be as mushy as possible so they would blend easily.

Temper the spices: I think this is where one can get quite creative. Add whatever spices and flavors you would enjoy and omit what you don’t like. I decided to temper some seeds like cumin, coriander, nigella, black peppercorns, and powdered asafetida. I recognize many of these may not exist in your pantry - no worries, add what does! I tempered these spices in hot olive oil on medium-high heat for about ~30 seconds until I could smell their aroma emanating from the pan. I turned the heat down to medium and then added heaps of garlic and fried that for ~2 mins until it became fragrant.

Note: In case you want to expand your pantry selection of spices, check out my suggestions.

Blend to engineer a blood soup: I added the tempered spices and garlic into the cooked beets and let this cool down a bit before transferring everything into a blender. I blended until everything was very smooth. I transferred the blood soup back into the instant pot and simmered for ~10 mins to let all the flavors mingle and the soup to become hot and steamy.

Garnish the blood soup: So many types of garnishes can add some interesting contrast to this blood soup. For this first time, I kept it pretty simple and dripped in a little bit of plane whipped yogurt on top. Without intention, the pattern appeared like a galaxy from far far far away (yes, I’m a space nerd too).

Savor the blood soup: I slurped this blood soup on a cold autumn day with a turkey and cheese sandwich.

The earthiness of the beets complemented by the bite of the garlic and the underlying flavor from the spice seeds combined into many many spooky slurps!

This meal was so wholesome and I think it began to cure some of my indifference towards halloween. I’m so glad I experimented with and created a blood soup in honor of this beloved holiday. Carrying my spooky enthusiasm into the next day, I was even moved to purchase and hang up a simple witch-themed front door halloween decoration!

Now the question is, do I serve my little costumed visitors some Blood Soup or stick with candy?

More important blood soup notes:

• This blood soup is a dish that goes pro-vampire to anti-vampire with one simple move. And that move is Garlic.

  • If are trying to kill some vampires, I would suggest adding even more garlic than I did.

  • If you are trying to keep the vampires happy, for the sake of your own life, I suggest you remove all garlic from your house; even a whiff of the garlic aroma must not come near this soup!

• It is important not to burn the spices or the garlic. It would turn into a pretty bitter and unsavory soup. If you do burn them, start over with the tempering.

  • However, burn to a complete char if you actually intend to serve a bitter soup as part of the halloween spirit!

• Serve the soup warm.

  • But I recommend serving it super hot and steamy, especially if you wish to burn mouths as another part of the halloween spirit

• Enjoy the blood!

  • … it’s delicious!!

Dish Debrief:

• Is this my winner or disaster? win

• How would I rate this dish out of 10? 8 out of 10

• What would I change next time? play around with spices for a different flavor profiles, e.g. sumac for tang, smoked paprika for smoky undertone etc.; omit beet greens for even more silky soup texture

• Would I make this again? yes, planning for often this fall