This vibrant and tasty soup is flavoured with curry leaves, tomatoes, red lentils then garnish with coriander and a squeeze of lemon juice. A heart-healthy soup!
Makes: 4 Servings Preparation Time: 30 Minutes Cooking Time: 15 Minutes
Course: Soup
Cuisine: International
Author: Healthy Asian Cuisine
Ingredients
- 1 medium red onion
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
- 12 fresh curry leaves (fresh or dried)
- 1 big red chillies
- 8 medium-size tomatoes boiled, skinned removed and chopped
- 250ml/2 cups vegetable stock
- 190g/1 cup red lentils
- 1 teaspoon salt, or taste
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- Fresh coriander (cilantro)
- 1 lemon
- chilli flakes (optional)
Method
Step 1: Making the Soup
- To prepare your ingredients, finely chopped the red onion. Mince the garlic and chillies. For fresh curry leaves, remove the curry leaves from the stem and set them aside. Note: I am using dried curry leaves; if using soak them in hot water for 15 minutes.
- Cut a cross on the bottom of the fresh tomatoes, boiled for 15 minutes then remove the skin. Place a strainer over a big bowl. Press and break open each whole tomato, allowing the juice to collect in the bowl below. Place the crushed tomatoes into a separate bowl and roughly chop with a knife or kitchen scissors. Measure out 250ml/2 cups of the strained tomato juice. Set aside.
- Gather the stock, red lentils, cumin and set aside.
- To make the soup, heat a heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat and dry-sauté the onions. Browned the onion by stirring frequently, add a couple of tablespoons of water or stock to prevent onions from sticking to the pan. Then add garlic, cumin, curry leaves and chillies and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute or so.
- Add the chopped tomatoes, tomato juice, stock, salt and season with pepper to taste. Turn up the heat to bring the soup to a boil then lower to a simmer.
- Once simmering, add the lentils and continue to simmer for approximately about 20 minutes or until the lentils are fully cooked through and soft. Once the lentils are cooked through, taste the soup and add salt or pepper to taste.
- If the soup is too thick, add more vegetable stock.
- Serve the soup in bowls and garnish with chopped cilantro, freshly squeezed lemon and chilli flakes if desired.
Note:
If you are not used to the dry-fry technique, just use a little bit of oil to fry your finely chopped onions, garlic and chillies.
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