Today's blogpost will help to alleviate this recurring, weekly annoyance.
Their kitchen-tested (sometimes tested to death) recipes engage me tremendously, probably because I've tried so many of them, and they work. They also tend to be crowd-pleasers, which for someone like me who often cooks for others, is a major plus.
Some of their spicing of food is just not my speed, but their January/February 2016 issue really grabbed me with this simple soup that I wowwed my family with at Christmas time. It's a 15 minute boiled soup, after you've done the work of chopping the onion and prepping the spices and other ingredients.
I cannot recommend this soup highly enough.
Chef's Suggestion: Serve in espresso shots at parties, drizzle with the melted spice butter and watch the faces light up. My sister Tamara pointedly said, "Oh, I'm not staying for dinner; I don't really like lentil soup." And then she smelled the air in the house within about 10 minutes of boiling the broth, and said, "Hey, ya mind if I try some of that?" One bowl later, and she was hooked. It's soup as crack cocaine.
Serve in espresso cups for the "shooter" effect like you get at fancy parties. You can buy those little cups for a song at kitchen outlet stores everywhere.
Andrea Geary's Red Lentil Soup
Ingredients
2 T unsalted butter (I've slightly adapted this, using oil for the "spiced butter" you see below)
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 T tomato paste
1 garlic clove, minced
juice of 1-2 lemons (2T lemon juice, plus extra for seasoning)
4 c chicken brother
2 c water (I did add in 2 t of "Better Than Bouillon" chicken broth.)
10½ oz. of red lentils (I had about a cup and ¼ c of lentils leftover in a jar that I threw in.)
Spices
¾ t ground corriander (I used my mortar and pestle, courtesy of Bret and Frank to crush the seeds; the fragrance was out of this world!)
½ t ground cumin (I always recommend keeping your cumin use to the bare minimum; do not use any more than this.)
¼ t ground ginger (I actually substituted 1
⅛ t cinnamon (I substituted a single 3" cinnamon bark stick which I tossed into the boiling broth.)
1 t salt
¼ t ground black pepper
Spiced butter for Drizzling
2T butter (I used 2T of fruity extra virgin olive oil.)
1½ t dried mint
1 t of paprika (I only had smokey paprika, or pimenton, and it was loverly.)
Garnish
¼ c cilantro
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| This is why you need a subscription to Cook's Illustrated. They make all the mistakes for you. |
Instructions
- Melt 2 T of the butter in a large saucepan over media heat. Add in the onion and the salt stir and saute for about 5 minutes.
- Add in the remaining spices above, cook until fragrant, about 2 minutes.
- Stir in the tomato paste and garlic, cook for another minute
- Pour in the broth, water, and lentils, bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer for 15 minutes.
- Whisk soup vigorously for approximately 30 seconds or until it is coarsely "pureed" without putting in a blender. Stir in extra lemon juice to taste. Cover and keep warm. This soup can remain in the fridge for 3 days or more. I had it a week later, and it was still outstanding.
Making the Spice Butter: Melt the remaining 2T of butter (or use 2T of fruity extra virgin olive oil) and stir in the mint and paprika. Drizzle over the hot soup in the individual bowls, after you portion it out to your guests. I won't lie, I tossed these three ingredients together into a bowl, microwaved it for 30 seconds, stirred it and served. It was cooking for the brain dead, and it smelled heavenly.
Garnishing: Sprinkle chopped cilantro over the top of each bowl. (You could use parsley in place of here for a different flavour profile, a more middle eastern profile. And in Iranian/Persian cooking they so a ½ & ½ parsley/cilantro garnish that would work well, too).
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