Lentil soup, if you believe the many references in the literature on Central Asia, were mainly food for poor families, while it was combined with Arabic recipes, in which broth was cooked from strange birds, and the serving of red lentil soups was supposed to run exclusively in fine china?
Crusaders who passed by fire and sword in the Middle East left no less surprising evidence and enriched Europe not only with sagas, but also with a variety of recipes brought from hikes.
Red Lentil Soup - General Cooking Principles
• Red lentils are picked and washed before boiling, but do not need to be soaked. This will not affect the cooking speed.
• Red lentil soups are boiled in broths, purified water through a filter, or vegetable broths. Despite the fact that lentils are boiled very quickly, hard unfiltered water can slow down this process.
• Smoked meats, chicken liver, and pasta can be added to soups cooked from red lentils. Red lentils are ideally combined with such products, giving soups on their basis a slightly sweet taste peculiar only to this type of lentils.
• Fill red lentil soups, like regular soups, with sour cream or any other dressings, selecting them to your taste.
• When serving, it is advisable to sprinkle each portion with greens.
“Turkish Tomato Soup” made from red lentils
Ingredients for 2.5 liters of soup:
• 190 grams of lentils, red;
• potato - 2 tubers;
• white onion head, medium;
• 50 grams of tomato paste;
• on a small pinch of red and black pepper;
• one small lemon;
• big spoon of table salt, coarse grinding.
Cooking Method:
1. Rinse the lentils in several waters; after the last rinse, do not immediately drain the water. It is better to drain it before you add lentils to the soup.
2. Put a griddle, preferably with a thick bottom on a small fire, pour in approximately 30 ml of vegetable refined oil and warm it well over medium heat.
3. Put the grated onion in a hot oil and fry for three minutes. 4. Add tomato paste and simmer for 2 minutes. constantly stirring so that the roast is not burnt.
5. In a three-liter saucepan, boil two liters of water (filtered). Put the roast into the still boiling water, add red lentils and, after boiling, reduce the fire level. Boil a quarter of an hour.
6. Add chopped large potatoes and continue to cook, stir well, for another quarter of an hour until the potatoes are completely boiled soft.
7. Add the peppers (black and red), table salt, a quarter of a teaspoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice and lightly whisk the contents of the pan into a homogeneous mass using a kitchen processor (blender).
8. When serving, decorate each plate with the soup with a thin lemon ring. Also near the lemon you can put a few parsley leaves.
Spicy red lentil soup with pasta
Ingredients for half a liter of water:
• red lentils, grains - 250 grams;
• 80 grams (small head) of onions;
• 60 grams of pasta, small vermicelli;
• hot peppers - to your taste;
• a small bunch of dill.
Cooking Method:
1. Pre-sifted, lentil seeds thoroughly washed with running water, cover with cold purified water and leave to soak for two hours.
2. After the specified time, wash the lentils again and let them boil until ready, pouring one and a half liters of filtered cold water.
3. Cut bitter paprika lengthwise, in half, remove the seeds along with the core and chop the flesh into thin semi-knee. Fry the hot pepper in refined oil together with the onion, chopped into small pieces until golden onion and put the frying in a pan to the lentils.
4. When the lentils are ready, dip the noodles into the boiling soup, stir well, season with black pepper, salt and continue cooking with a slight boil until cooked.
5. Add the chopped branching part of the dill, without stalks, and remove from the stove.
Red Lentil Soup with Chicken Liver
Ingredients:
• 450 grams of lentil, red;
• one kilogram of chicken liver;
• five small potatoes;
• two carrots;
• a small bitter onion;
• oil “Peasant” - 50 grams;
• pea pepper - 5 pcs .; • three leaves of lavrushka.
Cooking Method:
1. Carefully inspect when washing the chicken liver for the presence of gallbladders. If they are, carefully, so as not to crush and not spoil the liver with bile cut them with a knife. Also cut off excess films and pieces of fat.
2. Cold running, but better filtered water pour the treated chicken liver and cook broth. Intensively formed “var” shoot as it appears.
3. In the ready-made boiling broth, lower the lentils, and after ten minutes - cut the potatoes into small slices or cubes centimeter-sized.
4. In a pan with melted butter, fry coarsely shabby carrots with finely chopped onions and start frying in slow-cooked soup.
5. Add the washed leaves of Lavrushka and continue cooking with a small boil until the potatoes are cooked. When the potatoes are almost cooked, add a little salt.
6. Take lavrusha from the ready-made soup, cover with a lid and let the soup stand for half an hour.
Red lentil soup with smoked meat and tomato
Ingredients (3 liters of water):
• 190 grams of red pricked lentils;
• potatoes - two small tubers;
• 200 grams of pork, smoked ribs;
• 100 grams of smoked, fat ham;
• sweet white onions - 1 pc .;
• medium carrot;
• 75 grams of tomato;
• greens (parsley).
Cooking Method:
1. Rinse smoked ribs with water, scrape a little on all sides with a knife and put in a pan with crushed lentils. Pour cold water into the pot and put it on the fire. The water in the pan should boil quickly, so the heat is maximized. From the boiled broth, remove the foam, reduce the heat to medium, and continue cooking for at least a quarter of an hour.
2. On vegetable oil, slightly fry the onion cut into small half-rings with shredded short thin carrot straws. Add small centimeter cubes of ham, potatoes, cut into thin strips, and tomato paste. Mix gently and simmer for five minutes under a lid.
3. Mash the prepared lentils with a crush so that it is only slightly warmed up, but not turned into mashed potatoes. This can be done right in the pan.
4. Add stewed vegetables to the pot with the soup, add table salt and boil. Sprinkle with large greens and turn off the heat. 5. After a quarter of an hour, the soup can be served.
Red lentil soup with milk
Ingredients for 4 full servings:
• 210 grams of split lentils, red;
• 250 ml of pasteurized full-fat milk;
• one liter of chicken broth;
• 120 grams of bitter onions (large onion);
• medium sized carrot;
• two raw yolks;
• 25 grams of wheat flour;
• 15 gr. butter;
• 5 pieces of long loaf for crackers.
Cooking Method:
1. In the butter until soft, fry the sliced medium-sized slices of onion. Add flour and stir well to avoid lumps.
2. In a hot chicken broth, lower the lentils, add finely grated carrots. After the lentil broth begins to boil, continue cooking for about half an hour, until the lentil seeds are soft.
3. Transfer the onions fried in flour to the pan with the soup, boil, stirring constantly, especially at the bottom of the pan so as not to burn.
4. When the lentils are fully cooked, add the yolks whipped with milk into the hot, non-boiling soup and stir well, the mass should be homogeneous, and boil for five minutes until thick.
5. Turn off the heat and chop the soup in a puree right in the saucepan, you can not do this, but then the vegetables should be cut into smaller pieces.
Red Lentil Soup - cooking tips and helpful tips
• To keep the lentils in the soup whole and not boiled, boil the soup after adding it only with minimal boiling.
• Red lentils, laid out ahead of time, will become very hot after cooking, and the soup will look more like mashed potatoes.
• Red lentil soups are salted after full cooking, so as not to extend the time required to bring the beans to readiness.
• Red lentils go well with turmeric, coriander, black pepper and ginger, both fresh and ground dried. Keep this in mind when choosing condiments for red lentil soup.
