Brian’s Granny’s Carrot and Red Lentil Soup
Carrot and red lentil soup. Easy, cheap and delicious!
This recipe was given to me by my friend Brian. Brian is a bit older than I am and this was his Granny’s recipe, so it has a long pedigree. This is enough to fill my larger stock pot, It produces 8 or even 10 servings, depending on how greedy you are, so you may want to halve the quantities. Brian’s original recipe was twice this - he must have a cauldron.
It freezes well. I make a batch, freeze it in muffin tins, then turn out and bag it. I can take out 2 or 3 lumps as I need them.
This has pancetta and chicken stock, but it can be made vegan and still taste fantastic.
Serves 8-10
Takes 1h 45m
Ingredients
50g pancetta lardons (can sub streaky bacon)
2 onions, chopped
1 small rib of celery, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed and chopped
325g red lentils
3 carrots, grated
2l water
1 chicken stock cube
1 bay leaf
Plenty of black pepper
Directions
In a large stock pot heat a little oil and sauté the lardons until rendered and golden.
Add the onion and celery and cook until softened, just a few minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another minute. Don’t burn the garlic or the soup will be bitter. Yuk!
Add the carrots, crumbled stock cube, bay leaf, pepper and water and simmer gently for 90 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Remove the bay leaf and whizz the soup, either in a jug blender or in the pot with a stick blender. If the latter, just be careful that the stick blender doesn’t damage the non-stick coating of your brand-new, expensive, hitherto beautiful stock pot. It could, if you were not careful, leave a load of circular scratch patterns all over the bottom and it would spoil your day. But of course, I would not be so stupid. No Sirree, not me. Make sure that you are not, either. Add water if it is too thick, reduce it for a while if it is too thin.
Check the seasoning and serve, topped with a dollop of sour cream, sprinkled with coriander leaf (cilantro) and a side of my excellent home-made Four-Flour bread. Enjoy!
Notes
This is delicious as it is, but if you would like a bit more of a kick, you can add stuff to your bowl. Tabasco, Worcestershire sauce or Allepo pepper all do well. My current favourite, which I’m putting into just about everything at the moment, is Maggi Liquid Seasoning. How on earth do they so much oomph into such a small amount of liquid? You don’t need much (the very small hole in the top is a clue as to how much you should be doling out). It’s even vegetarian! Dark magic, if you ask me.