Made this lentil soup recipe after watching Alton Brown, my most favorite on-camera chef, make it on Good Eats (a previously-recorded Good Eats.)
It was fantastic! We're vegetarians, we eat a lot of lentils and black beans, and on the surface this recipe didn't sound all that different from the rest. Cumin and Coriander are the two most often used spices in my cupboard (after Basil and of course just plain salt. Lots and lots of salt.) But this was just a little different, and just thick and stewy enough, it was fantastic.
Here's the adjustments I made:
- I didn't have Grains of Paradise so I used a peppercorn blend that I got at some point - "gourmet" pepper. I don't know that it tastes much different. I might start looking for Grains of Paradise because now I'm curious what additional dimension they might lend.
- Near the end of cooking, I added in 1/2 a bag of baby spinach, which I roughly chopped (personal preference - I hate having to slurp spinach.)
- At serving, I added a teaspoon of goat cheese to the top of mine, and a teaspoon of sour cream to the top of my husband's (the infidel doesn't like goat cheese!)
- I think I also ended up using the whole container of vegetable broth, rather than just 2 cups (I think the whole thing is three or four cups, but i forget.) It was really thick coming out of the lentil-cooking phase, so it needed some more liquid to feel more like a stew/soup.
- I also used a can of tomatoes (Hunts Petite Diced, which are my favorite of the canned tomatoes) rather than fresh. Will try this again later in the season when I can add fresh tomatoes from the garden!
This was excellent, and after the chopping gave me enough time to be able to sit and watch the movie w/the family rather than be stuck in the kitchen the whole time, so that was great.
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