Tomato and Red Lentil Soup
Red lentils make an excellent, hearty and delicious soup. The one sad thing about them is that they don't keep their lovely salmon-red colour when they cook, but fade to a dull yellow. Cooking them with tomatoes keeps your soup a beautiful strong red colour, and tastes great too. This is a very simple soup to make that tastes more complex than it is. If you like, serve it with a dab of sour cream or yogurt.
8 to 12 servings
2 hours - 20 minutes prep time
2 cups dry red lentils6 cups (1 1/2 litres) canned crushed tomatoes
4 cups water
2 or 3 bay leaves
4 large shallots
2 tablespoons sunflower or other mild vegetable oil
2 teaspoons cumin seed, ground
1 teaspoon smoked hot Spanish paprika
salt & freshly ground black pepper
Put the lentils, tomatoes, water and bay leaves into a large soup pot, and bring to a boil. Simmer until the lentils are very tender and indeed dissolving.
Once the lentils are very soft, peel and slice the shallots, and sauté them slowly in the oil until golden-brown. Sprinkle the ground cumin seed over them towards the end of their cooking time. Mix them in with the soup, and remove the bay leaves. Add the paprika, and season with salt and pepper.
Purée the soup until very smooth. Like most bean or lentil based soups, this keeps well and is perhaps even better reheated the next day. Like most such soups it will also likely get very thick and need to be thinned a little with more water. It makes a lot; it could be cut in half quite easily. On the other hand, it will keep well and could be frozen.
Jennifer Sanders is a Meaford resident and author of the popular 'Ontario Seasonal Food' blog site. She is a regular contributor of local food articles to The Meaford Independent.
