Soup with the Simons: Classic lentil
By Tali Simon | August 19, 2011
I don’t know if it means anything to say that I am a total “soup head,” but somehow that feels like the best way to describe it. I just love soup.
Not cold soups, mind you, though I’ll happily eat gazpacho once in awhile. I mean thick, hearty vegetable soups of every flavor, ideally with garlic bread and a colorful salad on the side.
When it’s cold out, I cook up a big pot of soup at least twice a week, not including the must-have Friday night soup. But even in the summer, even if I sweat while eating it, I serve a soup-centered dinner once during the week.
This week it was lentil soup from Jamie Geller’s Quick & Kosher: Recipes From The Bride Who Knew Nothing.
(Cute story: During the first few months of our marriage, I watched every single Jamie Geller cooking video online, and any time my husband I and walked into a sefarim store, I made a beeline for her cookbooks. But because I have a hard time buying things for myself, whenever Hubby would suggest that we get one of Jamie’s books, I’d always say, “Nah, I don’t really need it. It’s just fun to look.”
Well, as soon as I left the country for my youngest brother’s bar mitzvah in June, guess who went straight to Manny’s? He even tried to get them to stamp my name on the cover, but the stamp guy said it wasn’t the right material.)
Anyway, about the soup.
Though I’m (clearly) a big Jamie fan, I was skeptical about this recipe. Other soups I’ve made were so much more involved — you had to saute the vegetables (or sometimes even roast them) before throwing them in the pot. But this recipe didn’t call for any prep work. It just said to dump the ingredients in the pot and turn on the flame. How good could it be?
Really good — maybe not the best soup in the entire universe, but definitely really good. And yes, it was really simple, no-fuss, and pretty hard to mess up.
What’s your favorite soup?
Modified from the original in Quick & Kosher
Ingredients
- 10 cups water
- 1 cup red lentils
- 1 cup brown lentils
- 3 medium carrots, peeled and sliced
- 4 Tbsp vegetable soup mix
- 2 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp dried parsley
- freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Directions
1. Place water, lentils, carrots, soup mix, garlic powder, parsley, and black pepper in a large soup pot and bring to a boil.
2. Reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.
3 Comments
malka on August 21, 2011 at 8:36 pm.
yea, this is an amazing soup recipe. i make it all the time!
Sarah on October 24, 2012 at 12:48 pm.
Will the taste be affected if I use only brown lentils?
Tali Simon on October 24, 2012 at 1:14 pm.
I haven’t tried it that way, but I think it would work out well enough. Red lentils fall apart and become absorbed in the soup, while brown/green lentils remain whole. Check the water level as it cooks to be sure the lentils haven’t absorbed all the liquid too quickly.