Archive for the ‘Lentil’ Category

Moroccan Chickpea and Lentil Soup

Thursday, December 23rd, 2010

Fresh Onion

1 onion
2 cloves garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
3 cups lentils (I use a mixture of white urid dal, orange dal and puy lentils)
1 tin chickpeas (drained and rinsed)
1 litre chicken (or veg) stock
15 dried apricots (chopped)
juice 1/2 lemon
1 tsp honey
2 tsp Ras El Hanout (Moroccan spice mix)
1 tsp salt

Chop onion and crush garlic.  Fry them in a big pot with a the olive oil for a minute or two.  Add the rest of the ingredients and bring to boil.

Boil for around an hour until everything is tender, adding more stock or water as necessary.  It should be a fairly thick soup.  Check the seasoning before serving with hunks of buttered, crusty bread.

Posted in Chickpeas, Dried Apricot, Garlic, Lemon, Lentil, Onion, Organic Box, Ras El Hanout, Recipe, Soup, Urid dal, Vegetarian | No Comments »

Beef, leek & lentil soup

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

Freshly Cut Leek

2 leeks
1 punnet cherry tomatoes
1 tsp olive oil
1 cup Urid dal (the split white lentils)
2 beef stock cubes (I use Kallo stock cubes)
1 ltr boiling water
1 tbsp dark soy sauce (to taste)

Cut off the tough bit of the leeks, then half longways and shred.  Rinse any grit out.  Rinse the tomatoes and cut in half (if you use bigger tomatoes, cut to the same sort of size; size is very important for the final texture).  In a large pan, gently heat the oil and add the leeks.  When they start to sizzle, add the tomatoes, dal, stock cubes and water.

Leave to simmer for an hour or so.  Check occasionally that there is enough water covering everything.  If not, add more.  Taste to see how done the lentils are.  Add the soy sauce if you think it could be a little more salty.  Leave to simmer for another half an hour if you can wait that long!  It should be thick, but there should be enough liquid to make it soupy.  The lentils will retain some bite without being hard.

This soup is amazingly delicious and needs to be served chunky, not blended.  The small hits of tomato in the salty, beefy broth teemed with the creamy lentils makes a truly wonderful combination; great to take to work as a cheap and warming winter lunch.  I made up this soup as the white lentils I had bought for making masala dosa were nearing their use-by date and I happened to have some leeks and tomatoes in the fridge.  I now buy them specifically for this as it is so good.

NB I get these lentils from our local shop over the road which has Indian ingredients, but you can get them in the ‘world’ section of supermarkets.  The packets look like this.

Posted in Beef, Beef stock, Leek, Lentil, Recipe, Soup, Tomato, Urid dal | 1 Comment »

Harvest Vegetable Soup

Monday, September 21st, 2009

Carrots, Potatoes, Onions…

1 tbsp oil
1 tbsp butter
4 potatoes
4 carrots
1 large onion
1 green pepper
1/2 cup red lentils (cover with water)
1 bayleaf
1/2 pint chicken or veg stock
1/2 pint milk
1 cup grated cheese and ground black pepper to serve

NB Do not attempt this without the green pepper!!

Chop up all the veg into roughly 1cm cubes.  Melt the butter and oil in a large pan, then add all the vegetables.  Stir for a minute or so.  Add the lentils with their water, the bayleaf and the stock.  (To add the stock I chuck the stock cube into the pan, then pour over the boiling water and let them get on with it, but do it whichever way makes you happy).

Stir to make sure none of the lentils are sticking to the bottom.  Add the milk and bring to boil.  The liquid should cover all the veg.  If not, add more water or milk, (or exactly half and half if you like to be precise).  Leave to simmer for about 40 minutes, stirring occasionally to make sure nothing sticks.

It should look like a thick golden stew/soup.  If the stock is still quite runny, squish a few potatoes against the side of the pan, then stir them in.  Check that you can’t see any lentils, they should have cooked down completely.  Remove the bayleaf. 

To serve, add a small amout of grated cheese to the bottom of your bowl, then ladle the soup on top.  Grind on some black pepper, and if you are hungry, line up some bread and butter for the side.

This soup improves with reheating and freezes well; certainly a recipe that is more than the sum of its parts, very cheap, easy to do and extremely tasty!

Posted in Carrot, Green Pepper, Lentil, Onion, Pepper, Potato, Recipe, Soup, Toddler, Vegetarian, Weaning | No Comments »