Moroccan Red Lentil Soup

ByMichelle Scrimgeour-Brown

My favourite latest kitchen creating is a Moroccan lentil soup. It’s so warm and comforting, I just adore it when the weather turns cold. I hope you do too! I prefer it with diced tomatoes over crushed, but that’s more about texture than anything else. The flavour is the same either way!

Ingredients

2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil

2 large onions, cut into medium dice (see Note)

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 tsp. ground coriander

1 tsp. ground cumin, preferably ground from whole seeds toasted in a dry skillet

1 tsp. ground turmeric

½ tsp. sweet paprika

¼ tsp. ground cinnamon

1½ tsp. kosher salt

½ tsp. ground black pepper

7 cups vegetable broth (see Note)

1 can (about 20 ounces) crushed tomatoes (see Note)

2 cups dried red lentils, picked over, washed, and rinsed

Pinch of red-pepper flakes

Juice of 1 lemon (see Note)

3 Tbsp. chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

1 Tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro

Steps

  1. Heat the olive oil in a large Dutch oven or saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onions and cook until tender, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic, coriander, cumin, turmeric, paprika, cinnamon, salt, and pepper, and cook for another minute. Add the broth and tomatoes and heat to boiling.
  2. Pour the mixture into a 5- to 6-quart slow cooker. Stir in the lentils, cover the cooker, and cook for 4 to 5 hours on high, or 8 to 10 hours on low, until the lentils are tender.
  3. Stir in the pepper flakes, lemon juice, parsley, and cilantro, cover, and cook on high for 10 minutes. Serve hot.

Culinate editor’s notes: If you don’t have a slow cooker, simply finish cooking the dish in the Dutch oven you start out using; the soup will be done much quicker, in about an hour or so. One onion is plenty for this recipe. If you don’t have 7 cups vegetable broth, use 1 quart (4 cups) vegetable broth and 3 cups water (you can also use chicken stock, if you prefer). Since canned tomatoes come in standard sizes of 14 1/2 and 28 ounces, not 20 ounces, use a 14 1/2-ounce can. And if you don’t have a fresh lemon handy, sprinkle some red-wine vinegar into the soup just before serving.

Source: http://legacy.culinate.com/content/212885/index.html – Recipe by Andrew Schloss

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