“I KNOW YOU WANT TAKEOUT BUT WE HAVE LENTILS AT HOME” RICH LENTIL SOUP

Andrew Buchanan

“I Know You Want Takeout but We Have Lentils at Home” Rich Lentil Soup

By Bailey Pickens

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of Lentils (I usually use brown but if you have black those are really special, or a mix of brown/black and red, if you have a bigger pot you can use the whole bag [usually between two and two and a half cups])
• 1-2 medium sized onions, (or big onions if you like onions), diced
• 2-6 cloves of garlic, depending on how much soup and how much you like garlic, sliced or minced
• 1-3 teaspoons of grated ginger, depending on how much soup and how much you like ginger
• 1 tablespoon of tomato paste (or some or all of a can of diced tomatoes)
• A handful (or three) of chopped greens (like chard or spinach or beet greens, optional)
• 1 tablespoon or so of coconut oil
• Several cups of water or broth, start with three times the volume of lentils
• 1/2 to 1 can of coconut milk (or a little bit of heavy cream)
• A lemon or lime
• 1-3 tablespoons of a curry powder you like *see below for spice mixture
• All measurements are extremely approximate; may the Holy Spirit guide and shelter you.

Instructions:

1. If you're using a combination of individual spices, measure them all into a bowl together except the garam masala. (Or add the garam masala too, I don't really know what I'm doing.)
2. Heat the oil in the bottom of an approprate pot over medium heat. Add the onion and a good pinch of salt and sauté until onions start to soften.
3. While the onion cooks, rinse and pick the lentils to get rid of dust, little rocks, sand, and any very sad-looking lentils.
4. When the onions have started to soften and turn translucent, add ginger and garlic and sauté until you can smell them, and then until that sharp smell softens. Turn down the heat if things want to burn.
5. Add the curry powder, or all the spices besides the garam masala, and stir, adding a little more oil if things stick. Toast for a minute, then add the tomato paste or can of tomatoes plus another pinch of salt and stir and cook. If you’ve added paste, you want to disperse it well; if you’ve added diced tomatoes, you want to let the tomatoes soften and some liquid evaporate, until you can see spiced oil separating out from the tomato/allium mixture.
6. Add the lentils and water or broth, plus extra salt if you’re using water, and stir to combine. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat down to medium-low and let simmer, partly covered, until the lentils are tender, which is between twenty and forty-five minutes depending on the lentils. Stir periodically and taste the soup for seasoning. Add more water or broth if it’s too strong or you want a thinner soup (the coconut milk will mellow the flavor a little, too).
7. Once the lentils are about done, add the chopped greens and garam masala if using and coconut milk or cream, starting with a couple of tablespoons and adding until you’re satisfied with the richness of the soup. I use coconut milk and find that I don’t need more than a quarter of the can or so for a cup of lentils, half to two thirds for a full pound, but it’s up to you. Simmer to wilt the greens, which will take thirty seconds for spinach and a couple of minutes for other greens. Serve with slices of lemon or lime for those who like acid, like me.

Spice Mixture:

• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of cloves
• 1/2 to 1 tablespoon of ground coriander
• 1/2 to 1 tablespoon of ground cumin
• 1/2 to 1 1/2 teaspoons of ground turmeric
• 1/2 to 1 1/2 teaspoons of sweet paprika
• 1 to 2 teaspoons of garam masala
• Cayenne or other ground chili powder to taste, start with 1/4 teaspoon

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The Story Behind the Dish:

The problem with me is that the quickest emotional shortcut to “feeling better,” which is never more amorphous than when I am upset, is the one-two punch of food and permission. Lent, coming as it does immediately after deep winter, usually finds me several steps down from my best self, sad and anxious, craving desperately not only something rich and soothing to eat, but also the relief of letting myself have it when, for some reason, I shouldn’t. When I was a relatively strict vegan, this was best accomplished by purchasing macaroni and real-cheese or several people’s worth of Indian food when my bank account was already very low: a reprieve from the mental energy of both ethics and fiscal responsibility, plus the undefeated combinations of dairy and refined carbohydrates. As a rule I entered Lent broke and out of sorts, fundamentally undernourished.

The point of this soup is to be good enough to soothe, worth the time it takes to make it (but that time better not be too long), and made up of mostly pantry staples. It’s vegan unless you use heavy cream, which I have never done and don’t really think would be better than coconut milk, but what people keep on hand varies. It comes together quickly. Lentils are good for you. It’s a rich, bright color and tastes like a lot of things but not like a compromise. It is the kind of soup that, once you get over the kicking and screaming because what you really want is to fire up your delivery service of choice and order palakh paneer and chana masala and baingan bharta and naan and also a huge platter of macaroni and cheese and never pay rent again, is a warm and gentle touch to the hurt and mad part of you that thinks blowing things up is what you really want, but is wrong. 

The point of Lent, I think, is in some way to make the absolute unsustainability of getting-what-you-want-as-succor painfully clear. Our needs—for a sense of agency and meaning, for nourishment of body and spirit—are real, but our desires are disordered, and the satisfaction we get from fulfilling desires over needs is simply licking chapped lips. The discipline of saying no to ourselves is not, ideally, self-flagellation. It is pulling the plug on familiar noise in order to hear a much deeper and more lasting yes: the yes that is the most bedrock way that God relates to us, the yes of sins forgiven, needs met, weakness held, spirits really and truly fed. The rush, as it were, of living water which, having drunk it, we will never be thirsty again.

Human beings live, by and large, in deserts of our own making, individually and collectively. To take forty-odd days to sojourn in Almighty God’s desert seems from the outside to be an unacceptable addition of hardship. But it is there that we are actually fed.

Also, the soup is good.