Eldon Street Lentil Soup Supreme
This was sent in by my dad, Tom Leonard. He is a writer (you can see some of his stuff at TomLeonard.co.uk
but basically we grew up eating this soup. It was his trade mark dish. I remember he even did a poetry reading where he ended up giving away small measures of Lentil soup in medicine bottles. That is one serving suggestion, other people might want to put it in a bowl and eat with a spoon.
Serves: about 5 bowls (or many tiny medecine bottles)
Ingredients:
- One pound of lentils
- one pound of carrots
- half pound of turnip
- medium to large onion
- salt and pepper to tast
- 3 and a half to 4 pints of water
Wash 1lb lentils in pot. (swirl them in three different lots of water three times, tipping the excess water over the edge leaving the wet lentils)
Chop 1lb carrots, add.
Chop half pound turnip, add.
Chop onion, add.
Add water, stir to keep the lentils from sticking to the bottom of the pot.
Bring to the boil, stirring occasionally to prevent lentils sticking. As water turns creamy on top, heading towards boiling, lower the heat.(Or with electric perhaps pull it away from the ring a bit). The trick is to bring the soup to the boil in a controlled way, trying not to let it boil over. If it does it doesn't matter too much but it's better not to. The carrot & turnip kind of foam as they approach boiling, which is why there can be a surge of boil-over, like heating milk.
When you have the soup to boiling, get the heat to the point where you can boil it in a kind of restrained way: you don't want it to boil furiously. At the same time, now is when you put the lid on the pot, and the object is to get the minimum heat going which, with the pressure of the lid on the pot, makes the soup slightly more than simmer. You have got it right when the pot lifts gently a bit every few seconds and releases the steam. You might have to wait a bit before the first lift. Wait.
The main thing also when you see the soup boiling, or lift the soup to see how it's getting on, is in the first place not to remove the scum; and secondly a short time after it has boiled, if you look, you might think it needs water, as there is no clear fluid. Leave it alone, it will fluidise again as it cooks.
It should be ready in about 45 minutes. Then you can see if it needs thinned a bit, and you add salt and pepper to taste.
Note: If you don't have space in your fridge to store this, you will need to boil this soup every day. You may need to add water if the soup is getting more solidy and less soupy.