Spiced Thick Lentil Soup with Sweet Pickled Onions

My quintessential winter soup! Tasty, thick, hot, smooth, velvety and filling…spiced with cumin and laced with a touch of butter…

In my house, we serve it thick, almost as thick as a puree that you can hold up on your crisp baladi bread…with the lovely sweet pickled onions on the side. As my mum taught me, they must be bashed! It helps release the sweetness!

The bread must be crisp and toasty to give a lovely crunch and texture to the soft velvety soup.

For the calorie conscious; here is the calorie profile for 1 serving of soup, served with 1 pita bread & 1 tsp butter (recipe to make 4 servings):

This recipe makes a thick and luscious version suited for a hearty main meal. If you like a thinner soup, add more water and it will work as a first course! Just remember to adjust your seasoning accordingly.

Simple, easy & delicious…enjoy!

• Servings: 4-6
• Time: 20 min prep, 1hr 20min min cook time, plus the pickling time
• Difficulty: Easy
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Ingredients:

• 2 cups split red lentils, washed & drained
• 1 small, peeled & roughly chopped carrot
• 1 medium onion, peeled & quartered
• 1 smallish potato (150 – 200gm), peeled and cubed
• 5 fat garlic cloves
• 1 small tomato, roughly chopped
• 2.5 tsps cumin powder (or to be fancy; take 2 tsp cumin seeds & roast in a dry pan on a medium heat for a few minutes till aromatic, then crush in a mortar or spice grinder…I can’t tell you how good this smells!)
• Salt, pepper

Pickled Onions:

• 2 medium yellow, red or Spanish onions, peeled, quartered, then bashed with anything heavy.
• 250ml (1 cup) water
• 140ml (1/2 cup + 1 tbsp) white or white grape vinegar
• 3 tsp sugar

To serve:

• Butter or ghee
• Crisp baladi bread (wholemeal pita bread) or any other crisp bread
• Pickled onions

Method:

For the onions:

• In a plastic box with a lid, mix in the vinegar, water & sugar. Make sure the sugar is stirred in thoroughly.
• Add the bashed onions to the vinegar base, make sure they are covered with the pickling liquid. 
• Close the lid and leave for a couple of hours. The longer it stays, the sweeter it becomes.

 The Soup:

1. In a deep cooking pot, place in all your ingredients using only 2 tsps of the cumin for now.
2. Top with 1.3 ltr water, it should cover the ingredients. If you want a thinner soup, start off with 1.5 ltr water. You can add more later if needed. 
3. On a high heat, bring the lot to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer for 60 min till the potatoes are completely tender. Do not cover as it will boil over! 
4. Leave to cool, then place in batches in your blender and blitz a lot till very smooth. This process of batches & blitzing will take about 15min.
5. Strain into another pot and taste. The more you have blitzed in the previous step, the easier & quicker it will be to strain:-) 
6. Taste to adjust salt & pepper. You want a good backdrop of cumin flavor, but it shouldn’t be too aggressive so based on your taste you can add the remaining 1/2 tsp cumin now or omit it. Also, if you want a thinner soup, here is when you can add a little more water. add in steps of 150 ml so it doesn’t become to watery. Adjust seasoning accordingly.

To serve:

• Dish out the hot soup in warmed soup dishes.
• Place a cold spoon of butter or ghee in the center (yes it will start to melt 🙂 )
• Serve immediately with the crisped bread & pickled onions.