Winter is the most suitable time for soups, warming and fragrant, lean and, conversely, rich and, of course, mashed soups.

One of my favorites is lentil soup.

Why from lentils? Firstly, of all the legumes, it is the leader in nutrition and beneficial properties. Only 200 grams of the product contains the daily intake of iron and folic acid.

Secondly, the taste of lentils, incredibly fragrant with subtle oriental notes, as for me, cannot be compared with anything.

Thirdly, lentils are rich in vegetable protein, which is easily absorbed by the body, carbohydrates in the composition of the product are complex (glycemic index - from 25 to 40, depending on the variety).

Doctors recommend using lentils for diabetes, stomach and duodenal ulcers, colitis, and metabolic disorders. Lentils also help to strengthen overall immunity and the normal functioning of the digestive system. ABOUT useful properties You can talk a lot about this product, but I suggest preparing this miracle soup as soon as possible, without putting it off indefinitely.

Lentil Soup: Recipe

Lentils, as you know, come in different types: green, yellow, red, black, brown. Feel free to use the one that you can buy in your store, no doubt, all kinds are very useful and tasty!

Oh, by the way, I'll give you a recipe for lean lentil puree soup (you can cook it during fasting, and it's also great for a vegetarian menu). If you want to make the soup more satisfying (or serve it to a hungry husband :), just add 500 grams of chicken fillet to the pan with the ingredients. We follow the recipe...

So, we need:

• lentils - 250-300 grams;
• water - 2 liters;
• carrots - 2 medium;
• onion - 1 large;
• spices (a pinch) - turmeric, ground black pepper, ground coriander;
• 1-2 bay leaves;
• salt - to taste;
• greens (any) and pumpkin seeds for decoration.

If you are going to cook soup in meat broth, then add 500 grams of chicken fillet to the listed ingredients.

Lentil soup puree: preparation

Rinse the lentils, put to boil in 2 liters of water. There, in cold water, cut the carrots (into medium round or square slices to cook faster), onions, put a bay leaf.

After everything boils, remove the foam, if necessary, and cook for about 40 minutes. Yes, don't forget to add salt!

Readiness can be determined by tasting the lentils (it should be boiled), the water will become a little cloudy. Carrots should be soft. If you cook chicken fillet, then during this time it should also be cooked.

Drain almost all the water into a separate container (BUT do not pour it out - we still need it), remove the bay leaf (and do not forget to take out the chicken fillet; it will need to be cut into small pieces, and then added to the finished soup puree).

Grind all the contents with a blender until smooth (3-5 minutes), adding the broth in small portions. As for the consistency, it should be medium (not too thin and not too thick), although of course this is entirely a matter of your preference. You can make the puree soup thicker, and then it will serve you both as a first and second course.

In the finished soup puree, add turmeric (it will give a pleasant yellowish tint), pepper, coriander. Put on the stove and bring to a boil (literally 1 minute). Ready!

You can serve the soup by decorating with your favorite herbs or pumpkin seeds. And for children, I recommend adding a little low-fat cream to the soup - so the taste will become tender, enveloping.

NB!

Soup meets the requirements proper nutrition, rich in vegetable protein and complex carbohydrates (I did not specifically add potatoes to the composition so that the soup remained dietary - there is no need for extra starch), it is easily digested and rich in vitamins and minerals. Also, lentil soup is indicated for diabetics (GI soup - 44), athletes, children! And how fragrant it is ... try it soon, I assure you, you will fall in love with it right away!

Greetings, lovers of my lazy recipes!

I don’t know about you, but we, in Baku, have several soups on the menu of almost any institution - mashed potatoes or cream soups, as they are also called. This is tomato, mushroom and, of course, Turkish red lentil soup.

Today I'm going to show you how to make Vegetarian Cream of Lentil Soup. There are many recipes for its preparation, most of them add tomato, but my puree soup, which differs little in taste from them, is not afraid of this word, the most original and fastest. And instead of a tomato, we will have milk.

Lentil story

Lentils are rich in vegetable protein and have been eaten since prehistoric times. Brown lentils (sometimes referred to as continental lentils) produce a light nutty flavor when cooked; it is often added to stews and casseroles, as well as salads. Red lentils are used in Asian cuisine. It has a light spicy flavor and is added to the Indian dish dal. Vegetarian bread and pies are baked from lentil flour. Lentils are sold dry or canned.

Lentils are one of the most ancient cultivated plants. Its grains were found by archaeologists in large numbers in the piled buildings of the Bronze Age (on the islands of Lake Bien in Switzerland). The ancient Egyptians prepared various dishes from lentils, baked bread from lentil flour. IN Ancient Greece There was a proverb: A smart person always cooks his lentils well. In ancient Rome, lentils were very popular, in particular, as a medicine.

Varieties of lentils

There are a lot of varieties of lentils, the most common are brown, red, lentils, Beluga and puy varieties.
Brown lentils are perhaps in the first place - in America, for example, soups with vegetables and various herbs are prepared from this variety.

Red lentils boil faster than other "sisters", so they are used when there is little time for cooking - literally in 10-15 minutes you can already enjoy a fragrant hot dish from the bean "queen". Overcooked red lentils make a tasty, nutritious porridge.

The smallest lentil seeds resemble caviar, so this variety was called "beluga" - like beluga caviar, they are round and black.

And the most fragrant is puy (black-green). It is also called: French green lentils or “dark motley”. The name was given to her by the French town, where this variety of lentils was bred. This “queen” will take the longest to cook, but it is a favorite component of various salads by chefs - due to its elasticity, puy does not boil soft and retains its shape even with stirring and adding sour sauces. It has a bright taste and spicy (pepper) aroma.

I associate lentils with winter. Usually, in winter there is not a wide variety of fresh vegetables, so the menu has a lot of meat, cereals and legumes.

For Cream of Red Lentil Soup you will need:

• 2 medium potatoes
• 3 medium carrots
• 1 onion
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 cups red lentils
• salt pepper
• 1 glass of milk
• lemon and dried mint for serving

Step by step preparation:

Our soup is ready!

Lentil cream soup should be served with dried mint and a slice of lemon, which is squeezed into a bowl before use.

In the original, the soup is not necessarily served with mint, but this is a feature of Azerbaijani cuisine, it is often added during cooking or to ready-made food, and it incredibly transforms the taste. Even if you perceive mint only in toothpaste and mint chewing gum, be sure to try it and you are guaranteed to be surprised :)

And with the most hardy (those who read the cream soup recipe to the end) I will share the easiest brown lentil soup recipe ever.

I usually cook this soup in meat broth. But it is so saturated that it may well become vegetarian.

For lentil soup we need:

• 2 large potatoes
• 2 large carrots
• 1 medium onion
• 200−300 gr. brown lentils
• 1 st. a spoonful of tomato paste
• oil for frying onions (I have ghee, but you can use any vegetable oil)

Cooking:

For our soup, we grate all the vegetables on a coarse grater. This gives it structure and density.

Also, as an option, my mother broke a raw egg into a ready-made soup and mixed it. The egg turned out to be beautiful flakes.

For lentil soup, bake some unusual homemade fragrant bread: or.

Ehh, I would love to eat soup with you, but I can’t yet. I am on a breastfeeding diet.

You know, during pregnancy, mothers are advised to eat only everything that is useful for vitamins, and after childbirth, almost everything is forbidden, for various reasons.
For example, not only junk food is forbidden, but also any ready-made store-bought food containing preservatives, sweets - because of various additives (my favorite condensed milk is also on this list, although it is generally believed that it helps produce milk) and so on. But if this is more or less clear, then the rest of the prohibitions include what we used to consider useful.

So, everything that can give an allergy to a child: chocolate (and coffee with cocoa), citrus fruits, nuts, whole milk (and sometimes other dairy products), all red and orange fruits and vegetables (pumpkin, for example).

In addition, you can’t eat gas-forming foods - the gastrointestinal tract system in the baby is just being formed and she doesn’t need an extra load (these are the same gaziki and colic that everyone is afraid of): legumes (that’s why I can’t have soup) and cabbage, as well as vegetables and fruits raw (although in apples and vitamins, but there is also fiber, which enhances the digestive process).

It seems that homemade cakes, bread and potatoes are not mentioned anywhere, but they contain sugar, yeast and starch, which give heaviness in the stomach or fermentation and are therefore also undesirable.

And in general, it is better to eat everything boiled and steamed.

Well, mothers are gourmets, did I scare you? In fact, not everything is so scary. Firstly, all these products can be slowly tried and introduced into the diet after three months, in the absence of a reaction in the child, and secondly, after nine months of waiting and childbirth, you are no longer afraid of anything! It is so?

Good food and healthy babies!

And those who are not on a diet can safely try and, of course, share your impressions.

Look for an alternative soup with lentils.

Bon appetit everyone!

By the way, we are expecting guests soon and I will definitely share original recipes from the festive table. I promise it will be delicious!

Fidan Amirbekova was with you.

Kiss everyone. All for now.

"Merjimek Chorbasy" ( Mercimek corbasI) literally translates as "lentil soup". This is an exceptionally tasty and nutritious dish that will appeal to many, and will perfectly warm you on cold days. Merdzhimek Chorbasy, as a rule, is cooked from red lentils, because. green does not give such a rich taste and color.

Ingredients

• red lentils 200 g
• water 1 liter
• bulb onions 1 PC.
• carrot 1 PC.
• butter 100 g
• dried mint 1 st. spoon
• Red pepper 1 teaspoon
• lemon juice 4 tbsp. spoons
• salt

Cooking

Peel onions and carrots and finely chop.

Melt the butter in a saucepan.

Add finely chopped onions and carrots to the oil, and fry for about 5 minutes until soft.

Now let's deal with lentils. When I first decided to cook this soup, I was faced with the fact that in Russian stores (perhaps in other countries somehow differently) I found two different types of red lentils. The first red lentil that we sell is quite large and rather brown in color, the second is smaller and orange in color. So, for this soup, we need exactly orange, because. it is smaller, peeled, and therefore cooks faster; in general, this type is better suited specifically for mashed soups. If you can't find orange "red" lentils, you can use brown lentils, only they will need to be cooked for much longer (or pre-soaked) and the color of the soup will not be as bright, more of a gray color.

Rinse the lentils thoroughly several times until the water runs clear.

Add lentils to onions with carrots.

Pour the lentils with 1 liter of cold water.

Cook the soup for 15 minutes after boiling water over low heat with the lid closed.

When the lentils become soft, salt the soup, add dried mint and red pepper. Stir and cook for about 1 more minute.

Now grind the soup in a blender. I have a blender with a plastic bowl, so I let the soup cool slightly before puréing it (I don't know how the plastic will behave if you pour boiling soup into it). If you have an immersion blender with a metal attachment, you may be able to blend the soup right away without cooling it down (check your blender manual, though).

Pour the soup into bowls, add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice to each bowl. You can serve soup with crackers. Delicious Turkish lentil soup puree Merdzhimek Chorbasy ready. Bon appetit!

Red lentil soup puree is a traditional dish of Turkish cuisine, in Turkish it sounds "merjmek chorbasy". Wonderfully tasty soup, very easy to prepare.

I appreciated cream soups and puree soups a few years ago when I first came to Turkey. Since then, they have firmly established themselves in our home menu, and always cause everyone's delight. Having published a couple of recipes, I saw that the reviews were good, that is, many people like such soups, so I decided that I needed to write more recipes that I use myself and that I brought from Turkey, where my daughter now lives. True, I will say right away that I slightly changed the recipes of Turkish cuisine to suit the taste that is loved in our house, in particular, almost everywhere I add a little potato, which gives a special, Russian, note to famous Turkish soups. 🙂 I also put more familiar herbs. Well, almost everything is unchanged.

• 1 cup red lentils
• 2 small potatoes
• 1 medium onion
• 1 small carrot
• 1 st. l. tomato paste or 2 tomatoes
• 1 st. l. lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp dried ground or crushed mint
• 1/3 tsp dried ground basil
• 6 glasses of hot water
• vegetable oil for frying
• salt, black ground pepper
• croutons, coarsely ground chili pepper and lemon quarters for serving

Cooking:

I have a special saucepan with a thick bottom for mashed soups, in which it is convenient to fry vegetables. So today I will cook in it. Pour a little into a hot saucepan vegetable oil and put the onion, cut into medium-sized cubes. We pass it to transparency.

We clean the carrots, rub them on a coarse grater, add them to the onion in the pan and continue to sauté over low heat until the carrots become soft.

We wash the lentils and let the water drain.

We shift the lentils into a saucepan and fry over medium heat together with onions and carrots for about 1 minute, stirring all the time.

Add tomato paste or chopped tomatoes without skins, fry for another minute. Then add peeled and diced potatoes.

Pour in 6 cups of hot water from a kettle and salt to taste. Close the lid, bring to a boil and cook on the smallest fire for about 30-35 minutes. Be sure to stir occasionally so it doesn't burn.

When the potatoes and lentils are ready, remove the pan from the heat and grind the contents with a blender. After that, I usually still go through the bottom with a masher to make sure there are no large cubes of potatoes left. The soup is almost ready. If in your opinion it turned out too thick, you can add hot boiled water.

Add some ground black pepper, mint, basil and a tablespoon of lemon juice. I must say that dried mint is traditionally added to almost all Turkish soups, it is very tasty. If desired, you can add a piece of butter or then put on a plate.

Mix thoroughly, close the lid, put back on the fire, bring to a boil and turn off. Let it brew for 10-15 minutes.

• Tatyana T. →
  I really liked the drink, it is very rich and probably even dense, like juice. Most likely because of this fruit drink did not like my child. It's a pity. I'll drink everything myself. Delicious. Thanks for the recipe.
• Kate →
  A good recipe, thank you very much, but I redid the recipe a little, I didn’t make minced meat, I just chopped it finely and added mushrooms and it turned out very tasty!
• Olga →
  Elena, tell me please, will you get pancakes from frozen pumpkin?
• Tatiana Kharkov →
  Everything turned out great! Those who tried this paska were pleasantly surprised by its taste, some thought it looked like children's cottage cheese, others - like ice cream, but everyone said that it was very unusual and tasty!!! Thank you!!!
• Tatyana T. →
  I made such a salad yesterday, I bought Feta cheese for it, it seems like it was specially for the Greek salad. But this cheese was very soft in texture, and after light mixing it broke and spread. And I thought it would be like you, Lena, in the photo. But despite this, the salad turned out to be very tasty, and my husband and I ate it at a time. So delicious I forgot to take a picture of it. Thanks for the recipe.
• margarita →
  Tasty! I really liked that the cooking process is divided into two days - what you need if you work and do not have time to follow the technology of a classic Easter cake)
• Irina →
  Elena, hello! Thank you for a wonderful recipe! I’m baking for the second year, the Easter cakes are very tasty, unusual! Only one problem: they are not very lush, low. The dough rises perfectly the first time, and the second and third - just a little bit, 1.5 times in 3-4 hours. It's about the yeast, maybe (I use dry sif-moment)? Or do I have to wait for the dough to rise? Or put in a bigger mold, so that for sure (not a third, but a half, for example?) Tell me, please!