Soup Night (17 page)
Authors: Maggie Stuckey
For such little bitty things, lentils pack a big punch. They are high in both protein and fiber. They contain several important minerals, particularly potassium and magnesium, which counteract sodium and thus help control blood pressure. They are extremely affordable. They cook quickly, when compared to that other common legume, dried beans. And they’re cute. Of course none of that would amount to a hill of beans if they weren’t also delicious. These four soup recipes will give you a good taste of the versatility of lentils.
The most familiar and most widely available are brown lentils (sometimes sold as green lentils), with a mild flavor and pleasant texture. But there are other types to explore. French lentils are smaller than the browns, and olive green in color. They retain their texture better than others, so if you’re making a lentil salad, for example, this would be a good choice. Red lentils are actually red-orange in color, but turn a pale yellow when cooked. (I’m always disappointed.) They are also smaller than browns, and cook more quickly; they’ll turn to mush if you’re not paying attention. Of course turning to mush can be a good thing — with just a little stirring you have a soup with a wonderfully creamy texture.
One caution: whenever you cook with lentils, pick them over for tiny stones and other inedibles. The easiest way to do this is to spread a layer in something flat, like a pie tin, and check through with your fingertips. When everything is clean, dump that batch into a sieve. Then another layer into the pie tin, and so on. When you’re done, rinse everything and drain.
Lentil Soup with Bacon and Orzo
Serves 6–8
There’s hardly any trouble in life that isn’t made better with bacon, and it sure adds a wonderful flavor to this soup. Orzo, a pasta in the shape of rice, handles long slow cooking beautifully and doesn’t turn to mush like rice can.
- 2
⁄
3
cup olive oil - 5 medium onions, chopped
- 8 garlic cloves, minced
- 1
⁄
2
pound bacon, chopped - 3 celery stalks, chopped
- 5–6 carrots, peeled and chopped
- 3 parsnips, peeled and chopped
- 12 ounces red lentils, rinsed and picked over
- 8 cups vegetable broth
- 1
⁄
2
cup tomato paste - 1
⁄
2
cup uncooked orzo - 8 cups water
- 6 scallions, white and light green parts, thinly sliced
- 1
⁄
2
cup chopped parsley - 1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
- Parmesan cheese, for garnish
- 1.
Heat the oil in a large soup pot. Add the onions, garlic, and bacon, and sauté over medium heat until the bacon is cooked and the onions are well browned, 6 to 8 minutes. - 2.
Stir in the celery, carrots, and parsnips. Cover, and cook until the vegetables are soft, about 5 minutes. - 3.
Add the lentils, broth, tomato paste, orzo, and water. Bring to a boil, and then reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, until the lentils and orzo are tender, about 30 minutes. - 4.
Just before serving, stir in the scallions, parsley, and zest. Top each serving with grated Parmesan.
Make ahead?
Yes, but stop the cooking just before the lentils and orzo are thoroughly cooked. Rewarm long enough to finish cooking. Don’t add the scallions, parsley, or zest until serving time.
For large crowds:
This is an ideal soup to double or triple.
For vegetarians:
Skip the bacon.
Sydney Stevens is an accomplished author, historian, and charismatic community leader. The community I’m speaking of is the tiny village of Oysterville at the tip of Washington State’s Long Beach Peninsula. Today a national historic site, the town was founded by her great-grandfather, R. H. Espy, in 1854, when the waters of adjacent Willapa Bay were rich with native oysters. Sydney and her handsome-devil husband Nyel live in the Espy family home, and Sydney is at work on a biography of her late uncle Willard Espy, a nationally known author who loved to write about words. Sydney is a natural storyteller, and so it is no surprise that any recipe she shares comes with a great story.
“This recipe evolved from my friendship with two remarkable women. The first was Frances Sommer, wife of master photographer Frederick Sommer. Each time I went to visit her in Prescott, Arizona, I always brought a supply of liniguiça from a little butcher shop in Oakland, and sometime during my visit she would make a heavenly lentil soup. (I should note here that Frances’s soup included neither oregano nor any kind of tomatoes — not diced, not sauce, nothing.)
“The second woman is Corina Santestevan, my teaching colleague. When I invited her to dinner, and mentioned we were having lentil soup, her face lit up. ‘It’s one of the meals I miss from home,’ she said. ‘Home’ for Corina was Taos, where her family has lived for more than 300 years. At dinner I could tell Corina was disappointed, even though she is far too polite to complain. At my urging, she finally admitted that her family’s lentil soup had a tomato base. From then on, I’ve always added diced tomatoes or sometimes tomato sauce, and a little oregano. Once in a while I cut down the amount of water or adjust the ratio of water to tomato sauce. Or double the amount of linguiça. But always, without fail, I think of Frances and Corina.”
Southwestern Lentil Soup
Recipe from Sydney Stevens, Oysterville, Washington
Serves 8–10
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 medium yellow onions, or 1 envelope onion soup mix
- 1
1
⁄
2
cups chopped celery - 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 pound brown lentils, rinsed and picked over
- 2 quarts water
- 1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1
⁄
4
teaspoon freshly ground black pepper - 12 ounces linguiça, sliced
- 1
⁄
3
cup sherry (optional) - 2–3 lemons, thinly sliced
- 1.
Heat the oil in a large soup pot and sauté the onions over medium heat until softened, about 4 minutes. Add the celery and garlic and sauté 2 minutes longer. Add the lentils, water, tomatoes, bay leaf, oregano, and pepper. Heat to boiling and simmer the soup for 1 hour. - 2.
Meanwhile, sauté the linguiça in a heavy skillet, pouring off as much grease as possible but being careful not to let the linguiça get rubbery. - 3.
Add the linguiça and sherry, if using, to the soup and heat through. - 4.
Just before serving the soup, add the lemon slices. Serve hot.
Variations:
Sydney always uses linguiça sausage because “after living so many years among the Portuguese in California’s Castro Valley and Hayward, I adore it.” But other highly flavored cooked sausages (andouille, for example) would also work.
Make ahead?
Absolutely. I’d hold off on the sherry until serving time, though.
For large crowds:
Easily expanded.
Red Lentil Soup
Serves 6
My friend Diane Mermigas, a journalist who is also a great cook, has a unique way with lentil soup. “In a moment of inspiration, I once combined this red lentil soup with some leftover ratatouille I had made the day before. The result was an absolutely delicious concoction that’s good hot or cold.”
- 1
1
⁄
2
tablespoons olive oil - 1 large onion, chopped
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 carrots, chopped (about 1 cup)
- 1
⁄
2
cup chopped tomatoes, fresh or canned - 1 celery stalk, chopped
- 1
1
⁄
4
teaspoons ground cumin - 1
⁄
2
teaspoon salt - 1 cup dried red lentils, rinsed and picked over
- 4 cups water
- 1
1
⁄
2
cups chicken broth - 2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
- 1.
Heat the oil in a 4- to 5-quart soup pot over moderate heat, and sauté the onion until golden. Add the garlic, carrots, tomatoes, celery, cumin, and salt, and sauté 1 minute longer. - 2.
Add the lentils, water, and broth, and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the lentils are tender, about 20 minutes. - 3.
Stir in the parsley, and season with salt and pepper. Serve hot.
Make ahead?
You’d be a fool not to.
For large crowds:
This is a snap to multiply.
For vegetarians?
Sure. Just use vegetable broth in place of chicken.
Mulligatawny with Apple Salsa
Recipe from Renee Giroux, Stanton Street, Portland, Oregon
Serves 6–8
Renee says: The contrast of the fresh apples, crisp and tangy, with the spicy-warm lentil soup is very refreshing.
Mulligatawny — isn’t that fun to say — literally means “pepper water.” A spicy soup of India, it was popular with British soldiers posted there during colonial times. The turmeric brings a golden color, and the coconut milk lends that essential Asian flavor. The apple salsa makes this soup sing.
- 7 cups chicken broth
- 2 cups brown lentils, rinsed and picked over
- 2 medium onions, finely chopped
- 2 (12-ounce) cans light coconut milk
- 6 tablespoons tomato paste
- 2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1
⁄
4
teaspoon turmeric - 2 teaspoons fresh lime juice
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1
⁄
2
teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 2 tart apples, such as Granny Smith, unpeeled, cored, and finely chopped
- 2 celery stalks, finely chopped
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
- 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
- 1.
Combine the broth, lentils, and onions in a large soup pot and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce the heat, and simmer until the lentils are tender, about 15 minutes. - 2.
Add the coconut milk, tomato paste, ginger, cumin, and turmeric. Re-cover and simmer the soup 10 minutes longer. - 3.
Make the apple salsa: Combine all ingredients in a bowl or container and mix well, making sure all the apple pieces get limed. Cover and stash the salsa in the refrigerator until party time. - 4.
Turn off the heat under the soup, and add the lime juice, salt, and pepper. Top each serving with about 1 tablespoon of the salsa.
Make ahead?
The salsa, for sure. The soup up to step 2, but this soup goes together so quickly you may not need to.
For large crowds:
It’s easy to increase, but add extra cumin a bit at a time, and taste as you go.
Soup Kitchen,
Open Source Gallery
Brooklyn, New York
For many of us, the phrase “soup kitchen” calls to mind a certain image. Whether that picture is or is not positive depends entirely on your worldview, but I’m pretty sure your mental picture looks much like mine. Unless, that is, one of us is talking about the soup kitchen at Open Source Gallery, because that one is a whole different ballgame.
The gallery is run by
Monika Wuhrer
and her husband
Michael
, both artists. It’s a small space (Monika says it’s “essentially a garage”) in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn. They conceived the gallery as a year-round community space that would solidify their sense of being invested in the neighborhood; Monika calls it “a social art project.”
Their Soup Kitchen is unique among the groups in this book. Every night in the month of December, someone volunteers to bring soup for the evening and feed whoever shows up. Monika puts out a sign-up sheet at the gallery in November, and it fills up fast. The volunteer cooks are completely responsible for their night: bring the meal, set up, help clean up.
What makes the experience unique is the entertainment aspect. Volunteers are invited to create some type of entertainment on their night and can do anything they wish: hang an art exhibit, do a poetry reading, play music, do a dance performance, anything at all. It has led to some amazing evenings.
For instance: A writer read a story, written just for the occasion, about a murder in a soup kitchen. A group of Irish cooks stuck potatoes on the wall and hung Christmas tinsel from them. An artist used pillows to create ceiling clouds and filled the walls with winter-themed ink drawings.
“One night a young man came with a pot of chicken soup and 44 paintings,” Monika says. “They were portraits of the 44 presidents, all in different painting styles — cubism, expressionism, impressionism — and he hung them all in just a few minutes. He claims he had never cooked before and just called his mom for the recipe.
“Another time a young teacher for autistic kids brought all the mobiles from his classroom and hung them here for the night. Using the mobiles, he told us great stories about the kids’ behaviors and his teaching methods. We had just seven people that night. One of them was a man who is homeless and very interested in art and culture. He brought his parents and friends of his parents from Germany.”
The December soup suppers draw anywhere from 5 to 70 people; 20 is typical. Flyers in the neighborhood help spread the word, and special invitations are placed in nearby homeless shelters. When guests arrive at the gallery, they find two long tables set with china plates and bowls. It’s a deliberate choice. The china enhances the feeling of a real sit-down dinner; the long tables mean that people sit with others they don’t yet know and conversations naturally follow.
“We try to make it so people want to stay and talk with each other,” Monika explains. “What we wanted to do is bring together people from many different levels and different lifestyles. I believe that people are intensely interested in other people, and we wanted a way to encourage connections.”
