Lentil stews, according to the many references in the literature on Central Asia, were mainly the food of poor families, while this is combined with Arabic recipes, according to which the broth was cooked from strange birds, and the serving of red lentil soups was supposed to be done exclusively in fine china?
The crusaders who passed fire and a sword in the Middle East left no less amazing testimonies and enriched Europe not only with sagas, but also with the variety of recipes brought from the campaigns.
Red lentil soup - general principles of preparation
• Red lentils are sorted and washed before boiling, but it is not necessary to soak it. This does not affect the cooking speed.
• Soups from red lentils are cooked in broths, purified water through a filter or vegetable broths. Despite the fact that lentil kernels are boiled very quickly, hard unfiltered water can slow down this process.
• Smoked meats, chicken liver, pasta can be added to soups cooked from red lentils. Red lentils are ideally combined with such products, giving the soups based on them a slightly sweetish flavor characteristic of only this type of lentil.
• Dress red lentil soups, like regular soups, with sour cream or any other dressing, choosing them to your taste.
• When serving, it is advisable to sprinkle each serving with herbs.
Turkish Tomato Soup from Red Lentils
Ingredients for 2.5 liters of soup:
• 190 grams of lentils, red;
• potato - 2 tubers;
• head of a white onion, medium;
• 50 grams of tomato paste;
• a small pinch of red and black ground pepper;
• one small lemon;
• a large spoon of salt, coarse grinding.
Cooking method:
1. Rinse the lentils in several waters, do not immediately drain the water after the last rinse. It is better to strain it before you add lentils to the soup.
2. Place a frying pan, preferably with a thick bottom, on a small fire, pour in about 30 ml of refined vegetable oil and warm it well over medium heat.
3. Transfer the onion, grated with a coarse grater, into the heated oil and fry for three minutes.
4. Add tomato paste and simmer for 2 minutes. constantly stirring so that the frying does not burn.
5. In a three-liter pan, place two liters of water (filtered) boiling. Transfer the roasting into the still boiling water, add red lentils and, after boiling, reduce the level of fire. Cook for a quarter of an hour.
6. Add the potatoes chopped with a coarse grater and continue cooking, mixing well, for another quarter of an hour until the potatoes are completely boiled.
7. Add peppers (black and red), table salt, a quarter of a teaspoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice and lightly beat the contents of the pan with a kitchen processor (blender) into a homogeneous mass.
8. When serving, decorate each bowl of soup with a thin ring of lemon. Also, next to the lemon, you can put a few leaves of parsley.
Spicy red lentil soup with vermicelli
Ingredients for a half liter of water:
• red lentils, grains - 250 grams;
• 80 grams (small head) of onion;
• 60 grams of pasta, small vermicelli;
• hot peppers - to your taste;
• a small bunch of dill.
Cooking method:
1. Pre-sorted, thoroughly rinsed lentil grains thoroughly washed with running water, pour cold, purified water and leave to soak for two hours.
2. After the specified time, rinse the lentils once again and set to cook until tender, pour one and a half liters of filtered cold water.
3. Cut the chilli peppers lengthwise, in half, remove the seeds with the core and cut the pulp into thin half rings. Fry the bitter pepper in refined oil along with the onion chopped into small slices until golden onion and transfer the frying to a pan to lentils.
4. When the lentils are ready, dip the vermicelli into the boiling soup, stir well, season with black pepper, salt and continue cooking with a small boil until cooked.
5. Add the finely chopped branchy part of the dill, without stems, and remove from the stove.
Red Lentil Soup with Chicken Liver
Ingredients:
• 450 grams of lentils, red;
• one kilogram of chicken liver;
• five small potatoes;
• two carrots;
• a small bitter onion;
• butter "Peasant" - 50 grams;
• peas - 5 pcs.;
• three leaves of lavrushka.
Cooking method:
1. Carefully inspect the liver for gall bladders when washing. If they are, carefully, so as not to crush and spoil the liver with bile, cut them with a knife. Cut excess films and slices of fat.
2. Pour treated chicken liver with cold running, but better filtered water and boil the broth. Shoot the intensely formed “var” as it appears.
3. Lower the lentils into the ready-made boiling broth, and after ten minutes, cut the potatoes into small slices or cubes of centimeter size.
4. In a frying pan in melted butter, fry coarsely grated carrots with finely chopped onions and start the frying in a soup cooked over low heat.
5. Add the washed leaves of laurel and continue cooking with a small boil until the potatoes are boiled. When the potatoes are almost cooked, add a little salt.
6. Remove the lavrushka from the finished soup, cover and let the soup stand for half an hour.
Red lentil soup with smoked meats and tomato
Ingredients (for 3 liters of water):
• 190 grams of red chopped lentils;
• potato - two small tubers;
• 200 grams of pork, smoked ribs;
• 100 grams of smoked, fatty ham;
• sweet white onion - 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 saucepan with chopped lentils. Pour cold water into a saucepan and set on fire. The water in the pan should boil quickly, so we make the heating maximum. Remove the foam from the boiling broth, reduce the heat to medium, and continue cooking for at least a quarter hour.
2. In vegetable oil, slightly fry the onion, chopped in small half rings, with chopped short thin straws carrots. Add small centimeter cubes of ham, potatoes, chopped into thin strips, and tomato paste. Mix everything gently and let simmer for five minutes under the lid.
3. Mash the finished lentils with a pusher so that it only slightly stretches, but does not turn into a puree. This can be done right in the pan.
4. Add stewed vegetables to the pot with the soup, add salt and boil. Sprinkle with large herbs and turn off the heat.
5. After a quarter of an hour, soup can be served.
Red Lentil Soup with Milk
Ingredients for 4 full servings:
• 210 grams of chopped lentils, red;
• 250 ml of pasteurized skim milk;
• one liter of chicken stock;
• 120 grams of bitter onion (large onion);
• medium-sized carrot;
• two raw yolks;
• 25 grams of wheat flour;
• 15 gr. butter;
• 5 pieces of loaf for crackers.
Cooking method:
1. Fry the onion sliced in medium-sized slices in butter until soft. Add flour and stir well so that there are no lumps.
2. Lower the lentils into the hot chicken stock, add the finely grated carrots. After boiling the lentil broth, continue cooking for about half an hour until the lentil grains soften.
3. Transfer the onion fried with flour into a saucepan with a soup, cook, constantly stirring, 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 a hot, non-boiling soup and mix well, the mass should be uniform, and boil for five minutes until thickened.
5. Turn off the heat and grind the soup in a saucepan directly in a saucepan, you can not do this, but then the vegetables should be chopped as finely as possible.
Red Lentil Soup - Cooking Tips and Useful Tips
• To keep the lentil grains in the soup whole, not boiled, cook the soup after adding it only with a minimal boil.
• Red lentils pledged ahead of time will boil too much at the end of 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.
