Red Lentil Soup


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This is a very delicious soup for the cold winters. Ulfet, Nurhan, Hacer all make this soup. Most of the ingredients used by them are same. Its again very healthy, fast and yummy!

Ulfet’s recipe.

Ingredients:
1 cup red lentils (red masoor daal),
1 -2 tbsp rice,
1 chopped onion,
1-2 tbsp Oil (any kind),
Salt as per taste,
1/2 tsp black pepper powder,
red pepper flakes as per taste,
1/2 potato chopped,
about 6-8 cups water,
mint powder (optional while serving)

Put all the above ingredients in a pressure cooker /cooking pot and cook it till the lentils and vegetables are done. With a hand blender, or a whisk, make a puree of the soup. Thats it, serve as is, or with a pinch of mint. Eat it alone or put some bits of bread in the soup. Enjoy!



Masoor Daal


This daal recipe is by Rudaba aunty. I use this recipe for any kind of daal (infact any Pulses e.g. Lentils, beans etc). They are high in protein and/or fibre.

Ingredients:
whole masoor daal (the brown round one),
salt,
turmeric (haldi),
ghee or clarified butter,
3-4 curry leaves (kadi patta),
1/2 tsp whole cumins (akha jeera),
1/2 tsp mustard seeds (raai),
onion chopped,
tomato chopped,
garlic ginger paste,
green hot peppers,

Dry spices:
corriander (dhania) powder,
cumin (jeera) powder,
red chilli powder,
1/2 tsp garam masala,

fresh cilantro(fresh dhania) chopped for garnish,
black pepper powder for garnish.

note: I do not have exact measurements, but I think about 1/2 or 1 tsp of the most ingredients will be ok for a cup of daal. Also if you do not have some of the ingredients you can skip them. You can make the daal with only the daal, some salt, ghee, turmeric, red chilli powder too!)

Method:
Boil the daal, with the turmeric and salt in pressure cooker or any cooking pot.
To make the tadka: heat the ghee in a little pan, add the mustard seeds, then when they start to pop, add the cumin seeds, then finally the curry leaves. After a bit, add the onion, green pepper, saute, then add the tomato, and ginger garlic paste.

Fry well, then add the dry spices. Again fry, for few seconds, they are done real quick, so be careful not to burn them.
Add this to the boiled daal, and stir it, and let it boil together for a few minutes. To garnish, srinkle the chopped cilantro and some black pepper powder.

Eat with hot steamed rice or rotis.