Madhur Jaffrey's Curried Red Lentil Soup

I picked up the thick tome titled Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian at the Champaign library last week. Coming in at around 750 pages, this cookbook's length rivals but doesn't quite best that of my old copy of Lord Krishna's Cuisine: The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking (almost 800 pages). With more than 650 recipes, and sections on dried beans, peas, and lentils; vegetables (of course!); grains; dairy; soups, salads, and drinks; and sauces, as well as information on equipment, an extensive glossary, and a resource list, this book looks to be one I'd like to own.

True to its name, the book includes recipes for non-meat dishes "from around the globe," among them Nigerian red kidney bean stew, Turkish green-bean salad, Indian flatbreads (paratha) stuffed with cauliflower, Vietnamese pancakes (banh xeo), homemade white Latin American cheese (queso blanco) and Italian mascarpone, Japanese miso soup with bean curd, Indonesian sambal, and minty Iranian lemonade.

I was looking for a quick soup in which I could use the red lentils I've had languishing in the cupboard, and I was in the mood for Indian flavors. World Vegetarian came through for me in the form of the recipe that follows.

Curried Red Lentil Soup
Masoor Dal Soup

Serves 4

Madhur Jaffrey's comments in the head note to the recipe: "This is a quick soup that I have devised for family lunches and easy weekend entertaining. It is based on my mother's recipe, which was heavily accented with cloves. I have carried those childhood flavors a step further, adding a little bit of curry powder and a few more vegetables. My mother used to serve her soup with fried croutons or thin slices of bread that had been crisped in the oven; I like to put 2 tablespoons of cooked rice per person right into the hot soup.

If you are using stock that is salted, check your soup before adding any more salt."

2 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons chopped onion
1 garlic clove, peeled and chopped
1 teaspoon freshly grated peeled ginger
2 teaspoons hot or medium curry powder (Jaffrey likes Bolst's curry powder)
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 cup diced peeled potato
1 small carrot, peeled and sliced into thin rounds
1 cup (6 ounces) red lentils, rinsed and drained
4 cups vegetable stock or water
1 1/4 teaspoons salt, or to taste
Freshly ground black pepper
Lemon or lime wedges

Put the olive oil in a medium pot and set over medium-high heat. When hot, put in the onion, garlic, and ginger. Stir and sauté 2 to 3 minutes, or until the onion softens and just starts to brown. Add the curry powder and stir for 10 seconds. Now put in the cloves, potato, and carrot. Stir for a few seconds, then add the lentils and stock or water. Stir and bring to a boil. Cover partially, leaving the lid slightly ajar, turn the heat down to low, and cook gently for 45 minutes, or until the lentils are completely soft. Add the salt and pepper to taste. Taste again for the balance of flavors.

Empty the soup into a blender and blend briefly; the soup should not be completely smooth. Serve hot with lemon or lime wedges on the side.

The only changes I made to the recipe were that I used pav bhaji masala (a spice mix used to flavor the dish of the same name) instead of curry powder; I sliced one long, thin, hot green pepper and added it with the lentils and stock; and about 5 minutes before the soup finished cooking, I stirred in a couple of big handfuls of finely sliced fresh spinach. I also squeezed the juice of one lime directly into the soup pot, and I didn't purée the soup.

This soup/stew is subtly spiced; it is not spicy-hot. It's great comfort food—delicious, hearty, and nutritous. It reminded me of the split pea soup we used to sometimes have when I was growing up. An added bonus is that it's quite comforting to your wallet, as well.

I ate the soup with rice, and I topped it with dollops of mint chutney. I procured the red lentils at World Harvest International Foods and the chutney at Schnucks (at different times; you can find both the red lentils and the chutney at any of the Indian markets in town and at World Harvest).