Spicy dhal soup

Serves:

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp ghee (or olive oil)
• 2 medium brown onions, finely diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 long red chillies, finely diced
• 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 1 tbsp mustard seeds
• 10 curry leaves
• 1 x 400g tin crushed tomatoes
• 1 1/2 cups red lentils
• 6 cups (1.5L) chicken or vegetable stock
• natural yoghurt, coriander leaves, to serve

Method

Melt ghee in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onions and garlic and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until translucent. Add spices, mustard seeds and curry leaves and cook for a further minute.

Add tomatoes and one tin of water. Add lentils and stock. Bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer for 40 minutes, topping up with more stock or water if it is becoming dry. Season well.

Serve topped with a spoonful of natural yoghurt and a handful of coriander leaves.

Serving Suggestions

Note

• This soup is even better the next day, so get ahead and prepare it the day before.
• For a similar effect, you could replace the lentils with yellow split peas.
• If you want to try this dish in the slow cooker then you can use this Slow cooker vegetarian dahl recipe.
• There is also bacon in this Bacon, potato and cheese soup and it’s perfect to feed a crowd.
• If you like your minestrone to have a nice smokey flavour then choose this Chorizo and minestrone soup.
• This recipe was created for Kidspot, New Zealand’s best recipe finder by Greer Worsley, who blogs at Typically Red.