In Aachen over the weekend I had a nice red lentil soup at a Turkish restaurant. They were so nice at the Turkish place. We were surprised (although one should expect) to not recieve the normal German customer service. Par example, you order a tea, you get it, but there's no sugar. You like sugar with your tea, so you ask your waiter (screw that "server" PC crap) if he could get you some sugar as well. And the waiter complains about making the extra run for you - in front of you! Sheesh!So the soup at the Turkish place was really good and I felt like re-creating it. I ended up creating something really different that tastes good too. The spicyness of the cayenne pepper accentuates the sweetness of the sweet potato and it's nice and rich with the help of the red lentils.
Sweet Potato Red Lentil Soup (serves 2 or 1 hungry person)
1/4C red lentils
1/8C onion (half a pretty small onion. maybe 1 shallot)
1/2 large sweet potato or 1 small sweet potato peeled and chopped into 1in cubes
2C water
1/2t oregano
1t basil
1/4t cumin
1/4t cayenne pepper (some like it hot!)
1t (heaping) veg bouillon
salt and pepper to taste
In a stock pot, fry onions in olive or veg oil. after a minute or two, add herbs. after onions begin to brown/ are soft, add water, lentils, sweet potato and veg bouillon and bring to a boil. I actually cooked my sweet potato in the microwave before and added it once the lentils were soft (about 10min). that worked fine. serve warm or save it for the next day, when it'll be even better!
4 comments:
that reminds me of the waiter in Trier... he hated us so much. I never ate sweet potatoes while there- didn't even know they existed there!
French waiters aren't much better, but it makes me realize I'm not the center of the universe, as I am apt to do. :-)
i was actually thinking of the waiter in Trier while i was writing that. it was your fault for wanting honey with the green tea and honey that you ordered, manda.
and the sweet potato was quite the surprising find in Edeka the other day!
mom, remind me to tell you about ordering drinks in paris....
you know, i don't really like red lentils. something about the flavor and the incessantly long time they take to cook. i prefer the regular lentils, or the french lentils. however, this recipe sounds delicious.
-Erik
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