Spicy Lentil and Bacon Soup (Soups)

Member Name: Suzela

Product:	Soups
Date:	25/02/09 (670 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Delicious and healthy

Disadvantages: Well it's made from lentils so you can guess!

When I left home my Mum wrote down a number of my favourite "just like Mum makes" recipes so that when I was feeling a bit down I could turn to the book and make a nice comforting meal. Ironically I didn't open this book for all the time I was at university but it started to come in handy when I met my husband and I wanted to share with him something of where I was from and how I was brought up (don't worry I did take him to meet my parents as well!).

So the first thing I made for him was my Mum's world famous (well in our house anyway) spicy lentil and bacon soup. I decided on this recipe as I thought he would want something warm and filling when he came home from the football. You see this soup is really delicious. It is filling and comforting, packed full of good things and is reasonably healthy in terms of fat but maybe not so much in terms of salt. But serve it with a big hunk of fresh bread and butter and you have a whole meal in itself. Just the kind of thing you want when you come back from a cold football match (and just in case they had lost it was nice and comforting!)

Now he told me the week before that he was going to the football and it must be a sign of being newly in love that I decided there and then to prepare a homely meal for him (oh how things change!). But it was just as well that I decided a week before because I needed to do a little preparation.

The ingredients for Mum's recipe are as follows:

500g red lentils
2 litres of water
1 litre of bacon stock*
Bay Leaf
2 large white onions (preferably spanish) finely chopped.
1 large or 2 medium grated carrots
2 teaspoons of mixed herbs
1 teaspoon of chilli powder
2 teaspoons of white pepper
Black pepper to season and salt if required
Diced bacon/gammon (optional)

Total cooking time: 1 hour
Serves 4 to 6 (maybe more if you have small portions or 2 if you are starving!)

* the bacon stock is made when you boil or roast a gammon or bacon joint. The way my Mum roasts her unsmoked gammon at Christmas is to place the gammon in a large deep roasting pan which is lined with turkey sized foil (so that you can make a parcel with the foil), pours boiling water over the top and then puts a cloves, a bay leaf and peppercorns in the water. Then she seals up the foil so that the gammon almost pot roasts. The remaining juices at the end of cooking is the bacon stock. You simply strain the stock and let it cool so that you can scoop the white layer of fat which forms on the top thus reducing the fat content. This can then be stored in the fridge for a few days or put into the freezer but you do need to prepare it a little in advance.

Cooking method:
1. Rinse the lentils and put into a large saucepan. Cover the lentils with the water and bring to the boil for 10 minutes. There are two lines on thought on how to cook lentils - one saying that you should skim the lentils of the creamy scum which forms as the lentils boil and the second says not to bother. I personally prefer the first method but each to their own. Then turn down to a simmer for 20 minutes.
2. Add the bay leaf, finely chopped onions and grated carrots.
3. Add the bacon stock, herbs, chilli and white pepper and bring to the boil for 5 minutes and then reduce to a simmer for 25 minutes. If you were going to add some bacon/gammon in then do it for the final 10 minutes.
4. Season with black pepper but taste to see if you need to add any additional salt as the bacon stock and bacon if added is already very salty.
5. Serve piping hot with hunks of crusty bread and butter.

The soup reduces down to a thick orange/yellow liquid. It isn't a very smooth soup but it also isn't a very chunky soup except for the chunks of bacon. Of course you can blend the soup before you add the bacon if you prefer smoother soups. I would say the soup is mildly spicy but you can add as little or as much as you like. I now add a fresh chilli for extra heat!

You can also make a vegetarian version of this soup by substituting the bacon stock with a litre of vegetable stock and omitting the meat altogether. This version is great if you just want to make the soup off the cuff at lunch time or dinner. I did this during the great snow a few weeks ago after we'd been out making snowmen! You can also reduce the cooking time down to 35 minutes by adding all the vegetables, spice, herbs and by adding only half a litre of hot vegetable stock once the lentils have boiled for 10 minutes. Once cool you can freeze both methods of this soup quite nicely.

The only downside to this soup is it has well "unfortunate" side effects - however it proved he must love me because it didn't put him off!

Summary: Yummy Mummy soup!