Spiced Tomato Lentil Soup Recipe

When I was a teenager, I had braces for about three years. Every time we went to the orthodontist to have my teeth looked at, afterwards one of the very few things I could manage to eat was canned tomato soup. As a result, to this day I cannot even stomach the thought of tomato soup.

This soup, however, helped me overcome that aversion. Full of spices to add extra flavour and made creamy with coconut milk, this is a soup that makes everyone stop and sniff the air when you heat it in the lunch room. You can make it vegetarian by using vegetable stock, or meatier by adding a little cooked sausage at the end. You decide! The addition of lentils make it filling, and kids won't even notice they are eating them.

Ingredients:

2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp fresh ginger, minced
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 jalapeno, seeded and minced
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp coriander
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 bay leaves
28 oz diced tomatoes or 3 cups of diced fresh tomatoes
8 cups of vegetable or chicken stock
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 cup red lentils
2 cans (14 oz each) of coconut milk
salt and fresh cracked pepper
lime (zest and juice) chopped cilantro for garnish

  In a dry fry pan over medium heat, toast the cumin seeds until you can smell their aroma. Set them aside. Whiz them up in a clean coffee grinder. If you don’t have a spice grinder or mortar and pestle, use 1 tsp ground cumin.

  In the bottom of your soup pot, fry up the onion, garlic, ginger, mustard seeds, and jalapeno in the olive oil for about 3-5 minutes, or until softened. Stir in the cumin seeds, turmeric, coriander, cinnamon, and bay leaves. Keep cooking and stirring for another 3-5 minutes so that the spices toast up a little.

  Stir in the tomatoes, stock, tomato paste, and lentils. Bring the mixture to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer, uncovered, for an hour.

  Add the coconut milk and simmer another 20 minutes. Just before serving, stir in the lime zest, juice, then taste and add salt/pepper to taste.  Garnish with chopped cilantro.

Makes 10 servings

Adapted from Whitewater Cooks with Friends