My wife found an amazing recipe for a lentil soup a while back. She was working late today, so I cooked the soup while she drove home.
It’s pretty simple. Onions, garlic, peppers (I used a bell pepper) in oil. Add lentils, broth, chickpeas, and canned tomatoes. Season and simmer for 20 minutes.
It’s SO FLAVORFUL!
Usually with soups, there’s a mix of spices – and frequently, when I taste it, I say “Hmm, still needs something.”
This one gets a mere sprinkle of salt and pepper, and it’s great.
Apologies for the lack of photo; I didn’t think to take one while cooking. FauxPseudo’s post today made me think about sharing just now.
Ever tried dal? In its most basic form, you just cook split lentils until they disintegrate, and then add some salt, pepper, oil, whatever.
I’m always surprised with that as well, how flavorful it is. It sounds so bland, but really isn’t.
Just in case that helps explain where the flavor comes from. 😅
It’s crazy how red lentils with salt and pepper are so delicious, but then there’s a whole universe of other flavours you can add on too
Yes, and I have to confess that it’s probably my least favorite Indian dish. But this thread is making me think I should give it another try – the soup I made last night is basically a dal, isn’t it?
It also makes me think I should explore more lentil recipes!
Yeah, I do believe so. 😅
Dal is just the term for split legumes, so it’s pretty much like the “lentil” in “lentil soup”. The dishes will generally be creamy, because that’s what the split variants are good for. Well, and spices will likely be involved, because Indian/Pakistani cuisine. But otherwise, I don’t think you can really narrow it down.
For example, the German Wikipedia lists this as a widely-known example of a dal dish, which looks quite different from my description: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chana_masala
I used the term quite loosely there, because I do think, it’s a good entrypoint for looking up more recipes…