Sunday, December 12, 2010

"Lebanese-ish" Red Lentil Soup

Towards the end of each week I seem to be left with a strange variety of produce in the fridge. I find myself resorting to a dinner made entirely of things from my pantry because I’m not quite sure what to do with my Farmer’s Market Leftovers. I hate throwing any food out because it has gone bad, so I have made it my quest to start putting in the time to finding recipes that contain my random scraps or can be adjusted to what I’ve got around.


This week when I came down to the final produce selection this is what I had:

Several lemons with no rind (I had already used the zest for another meal)

Cilantro- 1 bunch

Brown Onions


Lots of options but not so much substance… I don’t think my hubby would be super satisfied eating pickled onions for dinner and not quite the hearty winter meal I was hoping for.


I ended up making a “Lebenese-ish” Red Lentil Soup that I adapted from allrecipes.com


Recipe:

6 cups stock (you can use chicken or veggie)

2 1/3cups dry red lentils

3 tbsp. olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

2-3 cloves of garlic

1tbsp. cumin

½ tsp cayenne pepper (you could also use red chili flake and I think it would be similar)

½ bunch chopped cilantro

¾ cup lemon juice

Salt and pepper to taste


Bring the lentils and stock to a boil and then cover and simmer for 20 minutes. In a separate frying pan sauté onions and garlic until clear and then add the onions mixture and cumin and cayenne to the simmering lentils. Simmer until the lentils are tender (~10-15 minutes).


At this stage you can puree the soup – but I prefer the more rustic version.

Stir in lemon juice right before serving and top with a hearty portion of cilantro. I found this really brightens up the flavor. Serve as a soup or make it a meal by adding some brown rice to amp up protein and hearty-ness.


1 comment:

  1. I am still going on and on about how much flavor this soup had. You can really taste the coriander - infact, I think the cilantro helps elevate the fresh notes. Mmm it was delicious.

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