Red Lentil Recollections

I love lentils.  There, I said it.  I have always loved lentils.  My mother made the best lentil soup.  But all my life (well, until I was 26), I thought lentils came in only one color - brown; and that lentil soup was strictly vegetarian.  What a shock when I was having dinner at a friend's house and they served lentil soup ... with little hot dogs in it!  I was apoplectic.  It couldn't be...no, not my lentils, being defiled in that way.  A more pleasant discovery, however, was that lentils came in a new and exciting color: RED.  My first grown up cookbook was Vegetarian Pleasures, by Jeanne Lemlin.  I still can turn to the exact page for my favorite recipes in that book without looking them up in the index, that is how much I used that book.  VP introduced me to red lentils.  At that time, red lentils were not so easy to come by; definitely not to be found in the supermarket.  Fortunately, I had access to wonderful varieties of foods in Philadelphia and South Jersey.  I think I found the red lentils either at the Reading Terminal Market or at Healthworks, a little health food store in Collingswood, N.J.  I tried them in a great recipe for dal and I was hooked.  They tasted a bit more peppery than the brown supermarket lentils, cooked quickly (a plus for a working gal), and, well, they were red.  Pink, really, but exotic and alluring.   Much later, I discovered mung beans, but even then, I thought of them as things to be sprouted, not cooked.  With this project, I have been exposed to such a variety of lentils such as I never imagined.  The Indian grocers are lined with row upon row of lentils, split, skinned, whole, ground into flour.  I have so far been using split mung, toovar (or toor), and urad.  There are others that I have yet to try.  I still love brown lentils (as you may have read in earlier posts, I use them in dosas).  I also love all of the other lentils and their cousins, the split peas, and chick peas, and azuki, and ...

Here is my mom's recipe for lentil soup, with a couple of optional additions.

MJ's Lentil Soup

1 cup of brown lentils, rinsed and picked over.
4-5 cups of water
one medium brown onion, chopped
2-3 celery ribs, chopped
1T salt or to taste
a good grind or two of black pepper
1/2 cup chopped fennel bulb (optional)
1T dried dill weed (optional)
1T crushed fennel seed (optional)
(1 or 2 medium tomatoes, peeled and chopped) optional
three or four leaves of swiss chard, chopped (optional)
lemon wedges and pecorino romano or parmesean cheese to serve

Put the lentils, water, onion, celery, salt and pepper in a stock pot (along with whatever mix of optional items you like) and bring to a boil.  Lower the heat to low and slowly simmer for about an hour or more until the lentils are falling apart.  If you like an even creamier texture, puree one or two cups of the soup and then stir it back into the pot.
You can serve it plain, but my mom served it mixed with cooked vermicelli cut up into one inch pieces, or with rice.  Squeeze the lemon into the soup and sprinkle the cheese on top.  Still my number one meal.


Red Lentil Dal
from Vegetarian Pleasures

1 1/4 cups red lentils
3 cups water
1/2 t salt
2 T Ghee or oil
1/4 t black mustard seeds
1/4 t turmeric
1/4 t cayenne pepper
1/4 t ground cumin
1/4 t ground coriander
1/2 t minced gingerroot

Rinse and pick over the lentil and cook in the water for about 25 minutes until soft and smooth.  Heat the ghee or oil in a pan and add the mustard seeds.  cook until the seeds start to pop and then add the remaining spices and ginger and cook two more minutes.  Add to the cooked dal and stir in.
My note: This makes a fairly thick mixture.  You can cook the dal with one extra cup of water for a thinner consistency.

This is my Go To dal for a quick and easy treat.  Nice to add cooked vegetables (such as squash, carrots, radishes, greens, etc., to it as well for a well-rounded meal.