Monday 4 January 2010

Spiced Carrot and Lentil Soup

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It feels like Manchester is frozen over. I just took a stroll to the local shops with E and JM and it must have taken us twice as long to get there as we were slipping and sliding all over the place. I'm beginning to understand why penguins walk the way they do.

Before we ventured out we had some hot soup to warm us up from the inside. Spiced Carrot and Lentil Soup to be precise, or January Soup as E christened it, as it comes from the January page of the 2010 Good Food calendar. As I often do I made some slight alteration to the original recipe, so here is my version.



Spiced Carrot and Lentil Soup (serves 3-4)

2tsp cumin seeds
a pinch of dried chilli flakes
600gr carrots, washed and coarsely grated
140gr split yellow lentils (you can use red of course as in the original recipe)
1 1/4 litre hot vegetable stock
125ml milk
salt, to taste
black pepper, to taste
1/2-3/4 tsp hot chilli powder
natural yoghurt

Dry fry the cumin seeds and chilli flakes for about one minute in a large saucepan. When they begin to release their aroma, remove half from the pan and set aside.

Add the carrots, lentils, vegetable stock and milk and simmer until the lentils are done. If you're using yellow split lentils this will take about 30minutes if using red it'll be a little quicker.

Using a stick blender, whizz the soup until completely smooth.

Return to a simmer and season to taste with salt, pepper and chilli powder.

Ladle into bowls and add about a tablespoon of natural yoghurt to each bowl, before sprinkling with some of the reserved cumin seeds and chilli flakes.

Enjoy!

9 comments:

Peter M said...

Sylvie, this zesty, smoky soup from the cumin would be perfect for this cold January day.

Happy New Year!

poppyseed said...

I love your blog and that soup sounds delicious. I'm going to try it soon.

Nora said...

Yum, yum, yum. January soup looks delicious - just the thing for these chilly nights.

Katie said...

This sounds wonderful. I love lentiul soup, its so comforting. Like the idea of adding a bit of chilli to warm you up on a cold day.

James B said...

Happy New Year! With the cold weather this week - what a perfect soup to warm you up.

BALLET NEWS said...

wonderful - someone told me that having soup for lunch will change your life - so I'm going to give yours a go ! Thank you and happy new year

julia said...

Very good comfort food, too. I'm curing a broken heart with this at the moment and it's working. Thank you.

Sylvie said...

Peter, Happy New Year!

Poppyseed, thanks for the nice comment about the blog. Hope you'll like the soup.

Nora, a bowl of soup seems to be just the ticket at the moment. I made some more today.

Katie, the chilli is great for that little bit of extra heat.

James, there seems to be more cold weather on the horizon, so more soup at my house.

Elise, I've never heard that before but like the sound of it.

Julia, a broken heart is a tall order for a bowl of soup to sort out, but every little helps.

Anonymous said...

This is a fantastic soup. We had it at christmas and again at New Year.I used coconut cream instead of milk.
My son said it was the best soup he had ever tasted.That is saying something from a boy who is nearer 30 than 20 who has had soup nearly everyday.
Great blog.Thank you for sharing your other recipes.