After making up soup recipes for a couple of years now, I’ve found some talent in combining tastes and favorite ingredients. This one seemed obvious, and it was indeed a great soup. Here is the recipe.
So many soups start with sauted onions, I chose to skip that step to cut down on calories and frankly to end up with a variation on that taste. Which is great, but I wanted a softer blended taste. So I used a lot of onions – two big organic ones – chopped, and just put them into the soup pot with the water that was heating. I had filled the pot about half way with water. Next, about 2-3 cups of red lentils, rinsed really well. i had both red and white potatoes, and cubed about 6-8 of each. A quart of canned tomatoes, and a bit of salt. I added enough water to come to the top of my large soup pot. I let that cook about 2 hours. Just before serving I made some fresh garam masala. In my coffee grinder I blended about 1 1/2 tbsp cumin seeds, about 8 cloves, the seeds from 6 cardamon pods, about 1/2 tsp cinnamon, a few pepper corns, a whole dried cayenne pepper without the seeds, about 3/4 tbsp turmeric, 3/4 tbsp coriander. Each bowl of soup had a little of that sprinkled over it. There was planty of left over soup, and I just added the rest of the garam masala to it before freezing.
A little spicy, wonderful blend of flavors, nice texture with the potatoes, and not too acidic with the tomatoes, the lentils gave it a thickness and fullness that was very satisfying. But the key id the very fresh ingredients of the garam masala. That makes this soup a wow!
This amount would serve about 15-20 people. If you’re going to make soup, you might as well be serious about it!