Simple, Comforting Lentil Soup Recipe

I used to make a lentil soup, ages ago, but for some reason, when I tried to make it over the last few years. my lentils were just too firm for my liking and the soup, therefore, un-yummy.

After making a pea soup which suffered the same, too-hard quality, discussion with a friend and net research, I discovered my error - going too fast by adding soup base and/or salty stuff to make the soup before the lentils were soft enough.

So today I made a really, really good lentil soup, with red split lentils cooked to my preferred mushiness. (If you don't like 'em mushy, cook 'em less long).

Simple Lentil Soup Recipe

You will need:

• 1 cup of lentils (I used split red lentils)
• 1 tbs olive oil
• 1 carrot, or 4 baby carrots
• 1 yellow onion
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 stalks of celery
• A bit (about 100 grams or so, just to add flavour) of ham or pork with some fat for flavour
• Chicken broth / bouillon 
• 4 cups (1 litre) of water to boil the lentils
• 2 more cups of water/ soup base (I used one bouillon cube with the 500 mls of water)
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp coriander
• 1 bay leaf
• salt and pepper to taste

Pick out and discard any bad looking lentils, rinse well in cold water. Cook the lentils in a large pot, according to package instructions, being not to overdo them if you don't like them mushy. Don't drain the water they cooked in.

Meanwhile, dice your onion and celery, crush your garlic chop your carrots. Heat oil in a large pan, heat onion and celery til tender, add carrots and garlic.

When lentils are to your satisfaction, add the veggies to the lentils in their pot, keeping the water you boiled the lentils in. Add finely chopped ham or pork with a little bit of fat (maybe a tsp worth of fat).

Add extra water with bouillon (if you want to only use broth that is fine, just tweak this soup to your taste).

Add bay leaf, coriander, cumin, and pepper. Be careful with the salt - taste the soup first to make sure it's not already salty enough.

Note - this soup would be just as delicious as a vegetarian meal; use a tablespoon of butter to replace meat-fat, and use vegetable bouillon instead of chicken.