Je Goûterai - I will taste

No.19: Red Lentil, Chickpea and Chilli Soup – 15.2.12

This week is my Low Wheat Diet week, which was going so well until I found out couscous was a wheat based food…… I went to the shops to hunt for wheat free staple food but instead of picking up ‘wheat free’ pasta, I decided to buy an ingredient I had not tried before which was Red Lentils. The only thing I knew they were used in was to bulk up stews and soups so that’s where I started! This recipe was taken from the BBC GoodFood website, it’s low fat, filling and pretty simple!

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/333614/red-lentil-chickpea-and-chilli-soup

Serves 4

2 tsp cumin seeds
large pinch of chilli flakes
1 tbsp olive oil
1 red onion, chopped
140g red split lentils
850ml vegetable stock or water
1 x 400g can of tomatoes, chopped or whole
200g carton of Chickpeas or ½ a 400g can of them
a small bunch of coriander
4tbsp 0% Greek Yoghurt to serve or any cream based product you wish to use!

• Heat a large saucepan and dry fry the cumin seed and chilli flakes for 1 minute or until they start jumping about (this starts to release their spices and aromas). Add the oil, onion and fry for a further 5 minutes.

• Add the lentils, stock and tomatoes and bring to the boil. Simmer for 15 minutes or until the lentils have softened.

• Whizz the soup with a stick blender or in a food processor until it is a rough purée. And if you’re a cheap student and have neither of these things like me, leave it. It’s perfectly fine without puréeing it! Pour it back into the pan, add the chickpeas and heat gently.

• Season well, stir in the coriander and finish with a dollop of your cream based topping!

I’m not a fan or spicy food so I left out the chilli and cumin, which I regret now because I promised myself with these new recipes that I would try more and more new things! However the soup was really nice! I didn’t have anything cream based so I crumbled some Rosary Goat’s Cheese on the top which is almost a mouse like cheese which tasted incredible. I loved that is was a tomato based soup and was a lot nicer than I expected it to be! It was really nice to get the odd chickpea whilst eating as well as it added an extra dimension of texture which was really nice. Today for my dinner, with my leftovers, I made a sweet potato bake which tasted delicious!