2 tbsp olive oil
1 Medium onion chopped
1 tsp tomato paste
1 carrot chopped or large grated
150g red lentils
½ tsp salt
½ tsp cumin
½ tsp chilli pepper or to taste
A good grind of black pepper
720g water
Method
Heat olive oil in a pot over medium heat and saute the onion and carrot until golden add tomato paste and cook for a minute then add the red lentils, salt, pepper, cumin, chilli pepper and black pepper stir well and cook for a minute or two then pour in the water and bring it to simmer. Cook covered on a simmer for 20 minutes. Uncover stir and cook for a further 10 minutes until the lentils are completely cooked.
With a stick blender, blend until it’s creamy and smooth.
Serve warm with some crusty bread and a squeeze of lemon.
In these hard times a boiler bird should be a lot cheaper than a roaster once you have made the soup (enough for 6 people) you then make another dish or two with the chicken, each dish for 6 people that way you can get 18 meals out of the one chicken in these hard times
Treat yourself to the Covent Garden Soup Book. My copy is 20years old, they are bound to have a new edition. I have a reptation for wonderful soups…I just smile and keep quiet! Elzabrh David has an onion soup…with cream…
Nope. Prefer to make soup without chicken than buy an industrial one. I make a flavourful veg stock and use that instead. A free range chicken lasts for a long time as we use small amounts at a time (and OH doesn’t eat meat anyway…)
Most of our stocks and soups are veg or shell/fish based. Amazing what a bit of soy, miso and the like can bring in terms of robust flavours. Very occasionally I will take out a mortgage and buy a chicken, but would only need to use a fraction of it for soup - unless feeding a lot of people of course.
I used some of the stock in cooking last night - seemed to work pretty well, and the rest has been frozen in bags. I may well have a go making soup if we cook another chicken, or maybe I’ll just roast some legs/thighs & then use the leftovers for the base.
Todays Tuscan bean soup, just finished in the slow cooker. Slow cooked lamb shoulder from Sunday did about 2l of stock that turned to jelly in the fridge, and half went into the soup along with lamb leftovers.
I was going to say the same, utterly different taste! I’m seriously impressed by some of it’s medicinal benefits as well.
Hubby has been having it as a tea (and eating the bits!) since we got covid a couple if weeks ago. When he forgets he has seen a pattern of being not as well / tired the next day.
I bought the last bit in GF today in Chancelade. Must be popular, I’d not even heard of it until recently. One of our staple weekly dinners is Thai green curry, after hearing about it we looked and something around 20% of the paste is galangal! That’s in proper TGC paste from the Asian market, not the awful tiny jars in French supermarkets
I use both at once.