After the long, tiring week that was, I felt like starting this week's cooking adventures off with a soup. So, we started perusing one of my favorite soup books Best-ever Soups by Anne Sheasby. We landed upon this spicy moroccan lentil soup - actually an old-time favorite, but I figured we'd make it a little differently this time using some of the ideas from Anne's recipe. We chose to skip the garbanzo since it often tends to overwhelm the flavors and I really enjoy the dominant flavor of puy lentils in a spicy soup. The whole process took us only about 30 minutes, cooking the lentils (20 minutes) just happened in parallel with the cooking of the veggies.
Simple, straightforward, stellar flavor!
Spicy Moroccan Lentil Soup
Servings: 3 giant bowls
1.5 cups of dried puy lentils
1/2 red onion - sliced
1 carrot - diced
2 medium tomatoes - chopped
1" ginger
4 garlic cloves
1 jalapeno
1 t olive oil
1 t cinnamon powder
1 t fennel seeds
1/2 t turmeric powder
1 t lemon juice
2 T chopped fennel
kosher salt
Cook the lentils in 3 cups of water in a pressure cooker. If cooking them on the stove, use about 3.5 cups of water.
Grind the ginger, garlic and jalapeno into a fine paste, adding water if needed.
In a large saucepan, saute the fennel seeds and onions in the olive oil for about 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes, carrots, ginger+garlic+jalapenos. After about 2 minutes, add the turmerc, cinnamon and salt. Stir occasionally and simmer covered - for about 15 minutes.
Once the lentils are done, throw them in, stir for a couple of minutes before taking off the stove. Ladle the soup into bowls and sprinkle with the chopped fennel and a few drops of lemon juice.
And if you love the spice (like I do!), maybe you'll add a dash or two of hot sauce! :) We had some onion pita bread from Trader Joe's on hand - we toasted these for dipping in the lentil soup. Got to love that TJs!
With all the fennel that this soup has plus the fact that it came from my veggie patch, it has got to be a Weekend Herb Blogging entry! (WHB #103)
9 comments:
looks so yummy and the i love the angle of the pic..
I agree with Nags the pic is so beautiful.
And ofcourse the soup too
The pic is absolutely beautiful and great & simple recipe..
from the pic am thinking this would be good with lamb **chomp chomp**?!
Thanks, y'all! :) The pix finally seem to be getting better!
I had Moroccan Lentil soup at Panera Bread once for the first and the last time. They stopped making it after that! I went back so many times looking for it :( Thanks for the recipe, I'll make my own soup now and may be gift some to the Panera Bread people, what say? :) And yea, the pics are awesome!
Sounds like a plan, Shweta! I can't imagine anyone taking a lentil soup off their menu!
Looks great... Beatiful picture, love that bowl, and the recipe sounds yummy... Love moroccan food!
Sounds very delicious! I love lentils and I'm just nuts about fennel seed, so I'm quite sure I'd like it! Welcome to WHB!
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