A rather eccentric, messy image complete with splatters, taken immediately before we dived in to eat it! Known as “still life on the run” in our household.
I believe this soup originated in Delicious magazine. Since I discovered it via sister-in-law R, I’ve cooked it multiple times, improving it every time. It has become one of my favourite soups. Delicious, healthy, low-carb diet friendly, vegetarian — what more could you ask?
The first thing to note is that the original recipe specified red split lentils. R didn’t happen to have any when she made it, so she used Puy lentils. Good move — having tried both ways, the Puy lentil version is vastly superior. Other than that, don’t miss out any of the ingredients — they are all essential. That said, you can get away with tinned tomatoes, but fresh are better. I particularly like it with cherry tomatoes, cut in half.
The serving suggestions top the soup off to perfection, with the lemon juice adding extra zing. This amount will make about four servings, unless you are greedy like us.
– 2 tbsp olive oil
– 1 large onion, finely chopped
– 1 large carrot, finely chopped
– 2-3 garlic cloves, crushed or finely chopped
– 1 tsp dried chili flakes or to taste (the dried chilis I use are incredibly hot, so I use one, seeds removed)
– 2 tsp ground cumin
– 1 tsp sweet paprika (unsmoked)
– 1 tbsp tomato purée
– 150-200 g green/Puy lentils
– 1.5 litres vegetable stock (a good quality cube is fine)
– 3 ripe tomatoes, diced, or a handful of cherry tomatoes, halved
– 200-300 g spinach — I use the bags of young spinach sold for salad, but they still need washing and large stalks removed
– 1 lemon, cut into wedges, to serve
For the garlic yogurt:
– 100 g Greek yogurt
– 2 small garlic cloves, crushed or finely chopped
– 1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
For the soup, heat the oil in a large pan, then add the onion, carrot, garlic, chilli flakes and some salt and pepper. Stir, cover and cook over a low heat for 7-8 minutes until soft. Add the ground cumin and paprika and cook for a few seconds. Add the tomato purée, lentils and stock and bring to the boil, then cover and simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring now and then.
Meanwhile make the garlic yogurt by mixing all the ingredients with a pinch of salt. Set aside until needed.
Add the diced tomatoes to the soup and simmer for 5 minutes more. Taste to see if the lentils are cooked, and cook a bit longer if not. Season with salt and pepper.
If your spinach leaves are small, you can use them whole, otherwise pile them up on a chopping board and cut across roughly. The original recipe tells you to fill the soup bowls with spinach and then pour the soup over them, but I prefer to stir them into the soup and cook just long enough to wilt them, 1-2 minutes. In this case, if you’re not planning to serve all of it, and are freezing some, set aside the amount you want to freeze, and add spinach to the rest, as the spinach will wilt and suffer from freezing. It’s better to add it on reheating.
Serve the soup with a dollop of garlic yoghurt in each bowl, and lemon wedges to squeeze over it