Soup of the Rainy Day

Today was one of those days that you wanted to stay in all day... rainy, windy, gloomy. But the perfect time for soup!!!

Rafa and I were feeling cold so I wanted to make something to warm up the bones and spirit.

11. An easy lentil soup, the Turkish way - *Soup*

Tom based this recipe on the 'soup of the day' that he eats all the time at a local Turkish café. It is funny to him as he had ordered the 'soup of the day' plenty of times; it has always been the same soup, this soup.

The main ingredients are red lentils and pearl barley. I didn't have any pearl barley, so just used the regular kind. I figured it wouldn't make much of a difference as I'd only use a couple of tablespoons in the entire soup.

So, I boiled the split red lentils and barley in about half a liter of water.

Split red lentils with barley.

In the pan next to the boiling lentils and barley, I sweated a chopped onion and a couple of finely chopped garlic cloves. I found out early that Tom's philosophy for soups - maybe his soupology - is that one doesn't necessarily need stock to make a good soup. The 'flavor' comes from sweating vegetables first, before adding the water.

To the sweated down garlic and onions, I added some tomato purée and dried mint, and then I added the lentils and barley with their cooking water. To make it more soupy, I added a bit more water and let it simmer while I got on with some garlic bread. The total time for the soup was probably about 30 minutes -- perfect and instant comfort. At the last minute I seasoned it to my liking, and that's it, it was done!

This soup was really delicious! I think what made it quite good was the softened lentils, the mint and tomato puree, and the soft and flavorful onions. I love soup, but I have to admit it takes a very special soup to impress me! I had really wanted to get some lovely Turkish bread from a neighborhood Turkish restaurant... In recent years there have been a lot of Turkish restaurants opening up in the area, all trying to beat out the New York famous Sahara, which my dad claims he discovered since we have been going there for the last 18 years... Anyway, they have THE BEST bread in the world. Soft and warm with nigella seeds on top, mmmmm. It's about a 5-minute walk from my apartment, but in the rain, I wasn't going nowhere!!! So I made the garlic bread, to go with, and it was really lovely.. No soup is complete without a crusty piece of bread.