Let’s discuss by means of the story of my favourite crimson lentil soup. Years in the past, two of my neighbors hosted a soup get together. It was an inspiring affair – massive pots of simmering soups and stews, home stuffed with chatty, pleasant individuals. A part of what I preferred was the straightforward premise. The hosts (David & Holly) made a variety of soups, friends have been requested to reach with their drink of selection and one factor to share – salad, appetizer, or one thing candy.

The Inspiration:

One of many vegetarian soups that evening was a wonderful shade of yellow-orange. It was a light-bodied, curry-spiced coconut broth thickened with cooked crimson lentils and structured with yellow break up peas. It seemed to be a wonderful tackle lentil soup. After I requested Holly to inform me about it, she talked about it was based mostly on an Ayurvedic dal recipe within the Esalen Cookbook, a favourite of hers. I believe that recipe might need been impressed by the Bengali-style cholar dal the place you see chana dal punctuated with raisins in lots of preparations.

Holly occurred to have an additional copy of the Esalen e book, and despatched me dwelling with my stomach full, a brand new cookbook tucked below my arm, and some ideas associated to the soup. I nonetheless make this soup often, like it (a lot!), and thought it could be enjoyable to revisit it immediately in video type – take pleasure in! I’ve additionally included some notes associated to adapting this soup to the Prompt Pot.

What Makes this so Particular?

The tactic used to deliver this soup collectively caught my consideration. Whereas your lentils are boiling, you saute a number of scallions in butter (or ghee, coconut oil, or olive oil) in one other pan. Add to these scallions a fats dollop of thick tomato paste together with loads of toasted spices and also you’re in your approach. This taste bomb is what you stir into the lentil base. Golden raisins plump up with curry broth. There are stunning again notes of ginger, and depth from that tomato paste. All of it comes collectively in a single wonderful bowl of restorative, lentil soup goodness. To be sincere, I think about the raisins elective and make this typically with out – or typically I swap in some chopped dates.

Topping Concepts:

I’ve cooked this soup numerous occasions through the years and have a tendency to complete it with what I’ve available. The unique recipe has you go massive on cilantro. However you may see in these images I typically pile it excessive with further scallions and freshly-baked kale chips. Different concepts:

• end with a number of massive handfuls of finely shredded inexperienced cabbage
• stir in a number of massive handfuls of chopped kale
• fry 30-40 recent curry leaves in a number of tablespoons of oil including some chile flakes (or torn chiles), mustard seeds and cumin seeds within the final 15 seconds or so. Pour generously over every bowl
• end with deeply roasted tomatoes and omit the raisins

A Variation

There was one variation that I famous after cooking this as a result of it caught out to me as significantly scrumptious. I used to be out of scallions and ginger however nonetheless wished to make one thing alongside these strains. As a substitute I used a powerful paste manufactured from chopped garlic and serrano peppers – in all probability a 50/50 mix. I added a number of tablespoons of the combination instead of the scallions within the recipe. The top end result was feisty, robust and actually fantastic.

I hope you take pleasure in this as a lot as we now have over the past decade or so! This is the place you will discover all of the soup recipes, if you wish to discover extra. And there are many lentil recipes within the archives as effectively.