Saturday, October 16, 2010

Red Lentil and Potato Soup





I got some potatoes from a coworker and decided to make a soup with potatoes in it. I came across a recipe on www.allrecipes.com which you can see HERE
Ruth's Red Lentil and Potato Soup (with Jessica's take)
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter (or oil)
1 large sweet onion, chopped
4 stalks celery, chopped
4 medium red potatoes, chopped (I used russet)
1 carrot, chopped (only had frozen!)
3 cloves garlic
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice (Didn't use)
1/4 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves (Didn't use -already the garam masala)
1 dash pepper
1 quart vegetable broth(used chicken)
1 1/2 cups dry red lentils
2 cups water
1 cup roughly chopped kale(used frozen spinach)
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 teaspoon file powder(Didn't add)
Directions:
1.
Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the onion and celery. Cook until tender. Mix in the potatoes, carrot, and garlic. Continue to cook and stir about 5 minutes, until the potatoes are well coated with butter. Season the mixture with allspice, cumin, cayenne pepper, cloves, and pepper.
2.
Pour in the vegetable broth, and mix in the lentils. Add water, increasing the amount as necessary to cover all ingredients. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and stir in the kale. Cook, stirring occasionally, 35 to 45 minutes, until the lentils are tender. Mix in the cilantro and file powder. Continue cooking about 5 minutes, or to desire

*I had more potatoes than the recipe called for so my quantities changed plus I of course added more spices like I always do. So here is a list of additions but keep in mind these values are increased in amount by 50% to 100% due to my potato volume. Obviously all these are optional. Feel free to stick with the original recipe.
Added after potatoes:
1tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp white powder
1 tsp tumeric
1 tsp paprika
 2 bay leaves
 Then with the "The Perfect Egg Pan infusion":
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
pinch of hing/asafoetida
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
And at the end when simmering:
2 loose tsp methi/fenugreek leaves


In Pictures

Potatoes can get very large!
One large potato (iPhone4 for size comparison of course)
 Potatoes at the grocery store are actually relatively clean!
Dirty vs Cleaned

All the main ingredients

  Oh food processor, let me count the ways I love thee...

The mighty mighty food processor.

Celery and onions after being fed through the mighty migh...
Food processor potatoes













Cumin seeds, ground cayenne pepper, and garam masala

I added half butter and  half canola oil

Everything up to the carrots added

Plus lentils, spices, and broth
Plus spinach
     AThis is where I went a little over board with the spices:

Fenugreek seeds, asafoetida, and cardamom
Then I got this really great idea to use my "The Perfect Egg Pan" to infuse the spices in butter and then add them to the big pot. Pretty ingenious huh? Just pretend I didn't bur..brown the butter.


I let everything simmer in the pot as the instructions indicated and voila:


Perfect with a pumpkin muffin on the side.

What I learned:
  1. Potatoes can get very large.
  2. Potatoes are very dirty.
  3. Listen to your husband when he tells you that reusable battery units are a good investment for a camera. 
  4. I F.ing love my food processor
  5. You don't necessarily need go completely overboard on spices. Probably should have stopped when I decided to infuse my spices in a "The Perfect Egg Pan." But it ended up really good so...oh well!



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