Bean borscht lovers will surely love this dish, which, after the first taste, will probably seem tastier and more refined. In different versions, the simple, cheap and very nutritious red lentil soup is widely used in Indian, Turkish, Arabian cuisine and also here, particularly in Dobrogea. It can be made with bulgur or chives or plain, like a cream soup. It cooks in half an hour, but is much tastier the day after preparation.
We need:
1 cup of dried red lentils, 2 liters of hot water, 50 ml of oil, an onion, 3-4 cloves of garlic, a carrot, a parsley, a pepper, salt, pepper, cumin and ground coriander, a teaspoon of turmeric, optional three tablespoons of boiled chives or bulgur, one teaspoon of tomato paste, green parsley, lemon juice
Preparation:
We choose the lentil grains and rinse them in different cold waters. Peel and finely chop the onion and garlic and separate the pepper, if used. Grate the carrot and parsley. Put the boiling oil in the saucepan, add a teaspoon of ground cumin, a little coriander and turmeric, sauté the onion and garlic a little, then the chopped chilli and the rest of the grated vegetables. Drain the lentils well from the rinsing water, put them in the pan over the tempered ingredients, mix, add the tomato paste, if used, and pour a liter of hot water over it. Let it boil for about 30 minutes, until the lentils have “blossomed” and the vegetables are almost blended. Season with salt and pepper, put the pot aside, leave it for five minutes and, with a heat-resistant vertical whisk, turn everything into a cream.
We can stop here and serve the soup with some pepper and green parsley on it, along with lemon wedges, which diners will squeeze into the soup to make it sour to their liking. A more consistent version with a different flavor is obtained if we dilute the lentil cream with the rest of the lukewarm water, add the boiled chives and boil it two more times, then serve the lukewarm soup, sprinkled with oil, with pepper. and parsley, along with chilli and lemon.
It is very good in both versions, and if we also want a version not for fasting we simply boil, together with the lentils, a piece of smoked coriander, and otherwise we do exactly the same and we will get a wonderful taste and for the third version of this preparation.