Name: Italian Lentil Soup with Broken Pasta
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 60 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 250 g whole red lentils; 100 g Banshi durum pasta, snapped short; 1 onion, finely diced; 1 each carrot and celery, finely diced; 3 cloves garlic, sliced; 200 g tinned or fresh tomatoes, chopped; 3 tablespoons cold-pressed sesame oil; 1.5 litres vegetable stock; 1 sprig and 1 leaf rosemary and bay

Before you cook

Cooking the pasta in the soup rather than separately is the whole point. The starch it sheds is what turns broth into something with body.

It also means the soup keeps thickening as it stands, so hold back a little stock to loosen it before serving.

Method

Warm the oil and sweat the onion, carrot and celery for ten slow minutes.
Add the garlic, rosemary and bay, cooking one minute until fragrant.
Stir in the tomatoes and cook until they darken and lose their raw edge.
Rinse the lentils and add them with the stock, then bring to the boil.
Simmer covered for twenty-five minutes until the lentils are tender but whole.
Snap the pasta into short lengths directly into the pot and stir once.
Cook uncovered until the pasta is done, roughly ten further minutes.
Stir often now, because the thickening soup catches easily on the base.
Fish out the rosemary stalk and bay leaf before they overwhelm the pot.
Season, loosen with hot stock to the thickness you want, and finish with oil.

Comments

Loading comments…