“For additional heat and spice, serve the soup with harissa, the North African chili sauce.”
— KCET
America’s Test Kitchen is one of the great resources for learning how to cook or bake any recipe. America’s Test Kitchen is also one of the great inspirations for a lot of recipes I’ve never heard of before ATK. I was on their YouTube channel when I stumbled across this video recipe. It looked so easy, that I couldn’t resist cooking it up for a weeknight after a long day at work. I’ve also had red lentils in my cabinet for about a year that I was too intimated to cook. Watching the video helped me to see that I had nothing to be intimated by, and that lentils are a great (and cheap) ingredient. So… I got to cooking! I loved the results as well as my husband. See below for how it went.
In starting this soup recipe, I started with the chopping up the onion, throwing the butter in the dutch oven, and adding the salt. Erin and Julia made a note that adding the salt at this stage was important to help the onions sweat faster and help prevent browning. I then added all of the other spices to the dutch oven to get the aromatics going.
At this point I was thinking this was a small amount of each spice, and that I needed to add more. I did not, I trusted ATK, and I’m glad I did.
Next I added the tomato paste, which is an amazing component for adding umami flavor in vegan or vegetarian dishes. I then moved through the rest of steps and got the water simmering perfectly for the 15 minutes the lentils need to cook and thicken up the soup. Once 15 minutes were up, the lentils had bloomed beautifully and I whisked for 30 seconds (ish) to get the best texture.
I was using a silicone whisk, and ATK was using a stainless steel whisk. Not sure if the material of the whisk changes the texture of the soup, but I liked the texture I ended up with by the end of cooking.
Once I got to the end of the soup recipe, I made the rich sauce out of butter, mint, and paprika. It was delicious, but there wasn’t enough butter, so I added a little more to get the right consistency.
Overall this soup is absolutely delicious and may become a week night staple.
America’s Test Kitchen Recipe
Red Lentil Soup with North African Spices
Serves 4 to 6
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 large onion, chopped fine
- Salt and pepper
- ¾ teaspoon ground coriander
- ½ teaspoon ground cumin
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
- ⅛ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- Pinch cayenne
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 4 cups vegetable broth
- 2 cups water
- 10 ½ ounces (1 ½ cups) red lentils, picked over and rinsed
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice, plus extra for seasoning
- 1 ½ teaspoons dried mint, crumbled
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- ¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro
Melt 2 tablespoons butter in large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and 1 teaspoon salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened but not browned, about 5 minutes. Add coriander, cumin, ginger, cinnamon, cayenne, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper and cook until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Stir in tomato paste and garlic and cook for 1 minute. Stir in broth, water, and lentils and bring to simmer. Simmer vigorously, stirring occasionally, until lentils are soft and about half are broken down, about 15 minutes.
Whisk soup vigorously until it is coarsely pureed, about 30 seconds. Stir in lemon juice and season with salt and extra lemon juice to taste. Cover and keep warm. (Soup can be refrigerated for up to 3 days. Thin soup with water, if desired, when reheating.)
Melt remaining 2 tablespoons butter in small skillet. Remove from heat and stir in mint and paprika. Ladle soup into individual bowls, drizzle each portion with 1 teaspoon spiced butter, sprinkle with cilantro, and serve.
Let me know how the recipe turned out for you in the comments below!
Trial & Eggs 