Season
Dietary
This soup is possibly a bit like marmite and honestly comes out differently every time but its one of my absolute favs and it’s super nourishing…I was cooking for a lovely lady when she had her baby and she wanted it every day….it seems to fill your belly and your cells with extremely satisfying nourishment. It’s so versatile, you can use whatever greens you’ve got, more or less, it’s still yummy.
Ingredients
3/4 cup green or brown lentils
2 medium or 4 small potatoes
1 bunch chard
1 bunch spinach (or whatever greens you’ve got…..I also used 1/4 bag of the winter salad)
1 onion
2 stalks celery
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp cumin seeds
1/4 tsp allspice
Fresh nutmeg, grated
1 large bunch fresh coriander
Any other greens or green herbs you have (dill is wonderful in this soup, if you like it)
Olive oil
Sea salt
1/2 cup of walnuts
A block of feta
Method
First things first…..wash and rinse the lentils, cover with boiling water from the kettle and soak while you prepare the other ingredients. You can also soak them overnight, it’s best but not necessary and I’m not that organised!
Finely slice the onion and the celery, mince the garlic. Remove stalks from the chard and slice (put leaves to one side). Heat a generous glug or 2 olive oil in a large pot and fry the onion, chard stalks and celery initially over a medium/high heat, stirring often. After a minute or so add the cumin seeds and toss in the hot oil till fragrant. Lower the heat, add garlic, allspice and nutmeg, cover and continue to cook till onions and celery are very soft.
Cut the potatoes into very small pieces (potato is optional and I often make it without) and add them to the pot with the drained lentils. Stir it all up, adding enough boiling water to just cover. Add the finely minced coriander stalks at this point…they have so much flavour you want to infuse in the soup.
Thoroughly wash all the green leaves and roughly chop. When the lentils are cooked (take one out and press it between your fingers to check) add all the green leaves, including the chopped coriander, and let them cook down into the soup, stirring to help them along. This may take a few minutes depending on how many greens you’re using. Then blitz half the soup so there’s still texture (or blitz fully or not at all)
Lightly toast the walnuts and roughly crush them. Serve the soup on bowls topped with the walnuts and crumbled feta, as much or as little as you like. A sprinkle of sumac is also lovely. A dollop of yoghurt works too.
