Tomato Red Lentil Soup

When developing red split lentil recipes for this month, I wanted one with a tomato base, at first it was a tomato lentil stew, and I realised there was nothing special about it so after brainstorming I decided to make a tomato soup and use the lentils to help thicken it.

This tomato soup is properly tomato-y because of 4 types of tomatoes you can find in it; sun-dried tomatoes, tomato paste, and passata. The sun-dried tomatoes are so concentrated with flavour, they bring an intense sweet/tart taste. The tomato paste is basically tomato sauce thats been cooked for hours until the liquid has evaporated and whats left is a super concentrated tomato flavour paste. This helps bring a hearty tomato flavour, its a great backbone to the dish, and helps with building depth- as if the soup has been simmering for hours on end. Lastly, fresh tomatoes and passata. Passata is an uncooked tomato purée that has been strained, so the flavour here is fresher and slightly acidic.

This is one of the three red split lentil recipes for the month of May.

prep/cooking time: 30-35 minutes

serves: 4-5 people

Ingredients

1 large onion

2 big cloves of garlic

2 tbsp sun-dried tomatoes, diced finely

1/4 tsp ground turmeric

1/4 tsp ground cumin

1/4 tsp ground coriander

1/2 tsp red chilli flakes or 1 tsp fresh chilli

1 tbsp tomato paste

1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar

2 tomatoes, diced

1 small/medium floury potato, diced

1/3 cup red split lentils, rinsed until water comes out clean

1 cup (225ml) passata

2 1/3 cups (445ml) water or stock

Plain yogurt, to garnish

Fresh parsley, to garnish

Method

1. In a pot on medium high heat, add a glug of oil and sweat onions until they go translucent. Turn the heat to medium, add in the garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, and spices to the pot and cook for a few seconds, until the spices are fragrant and the garlic loses its spicy aroma.

2. Add the tomato paste and cook until it darkens and starts to stick to the bottom of the pot, when this happens, pour in the vinegar and deglaze the pot, reduce it fully. Add the tomatoes to the mix, stir, cook until some juices from the tomatoes start to seep out.

3. Add the potatoes and lentils into the pot, stir to mix everything. Pour in the passata and water, stir everything properly. Bring the mixture to a boil, cover with a lid, and turn the heat down to medium. Simmer for 20 minutes, or until the lentils and potatoes are cooked.

4. When everything is cooked, turn the heat off and let the mixture cool down a little. Add the mix to a blender and blitz the mixture until it is completely smooth. Return the soup back on the hob to heat up, serve hot with a dollop of yogurt and some parsley.