An everyday-cooking recipe for Red Lentil Soup with Fried Ginger. Laced with Garam Masala and turmeric. Reheats splendidly.
Red Lentil Soup with Fried Ginger
Course: DinnerCuisine: Inidan6
very generous servings25
minutes1
hourAfter it has finished cooking, this soup will continue to thicken; thin it with hot chicken stock or water, if desired.
Ingredients
- For the red lentil soup:
2 Tbs olive oil, divided
1 yellow onion, cut into ¼-to-½-inch dice
4 garlic cloves, minced
3 inches of ginger, (peeled) and seriously minced (~3-to-6 Tbs)
1 inch fresh turmeric, (peeled and) minced
1 tsp ground cumin
½-1 tsp Garam Masala
⅛ tsp red pepper flakes (optional)
2 plum tomatoes, cut into ½-inch dice
2 cups red lentils, picked over
4 cups chicken stock
4 cups water
1 dried bay leaf
1 tsp coarse salt
Freshly ground pepper
½ cup plain yogurt, for serving
- For the crispy fried ginger:
2 Tbs canola oil
5 inches fresh ginger, peeled and cut into very thin strips (~2 inches long)
Directions
- In a large, heavy-bottomed pot, heat 1 Tbs oil over medium-high heat (setting 5). Add the onion, garlic, ginger, and turmeric; cook, scraping any browned bits from the bottom of pot with a wooden spoon, until the onion is soft and light golden, about 10 minutes. Reduce heat to medium (setting 4), and add the cumin, curry powder, (red pepper flakes), and tomatoes. Cook about 5 minutes.
- Rinse the lentils and stir them into the pot. Stir in chicken stock, water, and bay leaf. Raise heat to medium-high, and bring to a simmer, which will take about 12 minutes, stirring occasionally so that the lentils do not stick to the bottom of the pot. (The soup will get foamy.) Reduce heat to very low (setting 1); cook at a gentle simmer, stirring occasionally, until the lentils are tender, about 30 minutes. Add the salt. Add more, to taste. Remove from heat. Let stand about 10 minutes.
- Meanwhile, make the fried ginger: In a medium sauté pan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the ginger; cook, stirring constantly, discouraging the pieces from sticking together, until the strips begin to turn crisp and deep golden, about 6 minutes. Using a slotted spoon or tongs, transfer to paper towels to drain. Keep warm until ready to serve.
- Remove the bay leaf from the pot, and discard. Using an immersion or regular blender, puree the soup until the texture is to your liking. Add pepper, to taste. Return the soup to low heat until warmed through, if necessary. Divide the soup among 6 serving bowls; top each bowl with about 1 Tbs yogurt. Garnish with fried ginger; serve.
Notes
- Substitutions: curry powder for the Garam Masala, coconut milk for some or all of the water. Peanut or safflower oil would be good substitutes for the canola, but only if they were refined versions.
This is a very comforting, Indian-inspired soup with a mild, earthy flavor. Perfect for a chilly, wind-whipped day.
Social Learning
I wouldn’t mind adding potatoes to this soup, cut into ¼-to-½-inch dice.
If you have a simmer burner, move the soup to it instead of reducing the heat to low in Step 2, and set the burner to setting 4.
“Good luck finding that bay leaf,” is what you might be thinking at the outset of Step 4. It’s easier than you think. Fish through the pot with a slotted spoon.
I like soups with lots of texture, so I’m inclined not to blend them. But I think this soup isn’t creamy enough without at least a bit of blending. So, I go very lightly with the blender, stir, and assess.
Although I prefer Greek yogurt for almost every yogurt thing, a less-thick version seems like a nicer textural match for the soup. I like the soup with and without the yogurt garnish.
Regarding the Ginger…
The fried ginger provides sharp contrast. There’s not enough to get a piece in every bite – but you don’t want to. The occasional hits of it make the un-gingered bites seem even more interesting on their own. I like the soup with and without this garnish, too … although completely ungarnished, I think this soup seems a bit humble.
A mandoline would be the best way to slice the ginger in Step 3. Mine wasn’t handy, so I tried a cheese slicer, and then a box grater … but I found that careful work with a chef’s knife was the next best thing to the mandoline. Although a food processor with a thin slicing blade might also work; I didn’t think of it at the time. Whichever way you do it, you want slices that are as paper-thin as you can get them.
I know it’s a bummer to have several types of oil on-hand. I try to use olive oil for everything. But for the fried ginger, you need an oil with a higher smoke point.
The Backstory
The soup is not red, even though red lentils are indeed red before souping. This soup does have reddish undertones that, to be honest, seem more pronounced in these photographs than they do in real life.
That unmistakable food co-op vibe…
The yogurt garnish gives this soup that unmistakable “food co-op” vibe. What’s that? I guess you had to be there. I experienced the very tail end of the hippie-era food co-op era as a young man. I mean, the hippie era was well over with by that time, but small vestiges of it remained in areas where a few hippies held out against the yuppie transformation, and I happened to live in one of these places.
For those of you too young to remember, there didn’t used to be a Whole Foods. Yes. Let that sink in. No, I don’t know where people got hypoallergenic baby formula for gluten-sensitive children back then. Maybe they made their own trips to Peru and did their own fair trade.
Anyway, in those days, if you were some kind of weirdo who wanted anything organic, vegetarian, or unprocessed … good luck. Grocery stores back then didn’t even stock yogurt. I’m not kidding. So, free-spirited people used to ban together to form volunteer-driven “buying clubs,” through which they’d source wholesale “heath foods,” often sold in bulk, which club members could purchase at a discount.
These places are largely gone now, although where I spend the summers, there’s one that is vibrantly thriving. Today, it is nearly indistinguishable from a Whole Foods, whereas back in the day, walking into a co-op was clearly a fringe, subcultural experience. And it had a very particular scent. And often, in some of the fancier co-ops, there might be pre-made foods, and they had a very particular vibe. This soup has the scent, as well as the vibe.
Red Lentil Soup with Fried Ginger
Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man! unless otherwise credited. This content was not solicited by anyone, nor was it written in exchange for anything. Thank you, ⌘+C. References: “Spiced Red Lentil Soup with Crispy Fried Ginger,” from The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook: The New Classics, pg. 131. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2007. Also, The Herbeevore, Grazing Greens, and The Cafe Sucre Farine. Make It Like a Man! is ranked by Feedspot as #13 in the Top 30 Men’s Cooking Blogs.
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This soup sounds delicious. I love lentils. I’ve probably never had fried ginger, but I’m sure I’d like it.
une superbe soupe bien épicés comme je les aimes !!
bonne semaine
I love the rich satisfying flavors of this soup. Especially the fried ginger. It adds so much amazing flair to this soup!
Sounds good, Jeff. I like how ginger adds an extra flavour dimension.
Thanks, Gary!
Hahahahahaha! A fun read! Great soup. That’s a lot of ginger.
Thanks! Yeah, I guess it is … but it does’t really taste super gingery, excpet of course when you eat the garish.
I certainly remember the co-op vibe. I was rather taken with it in the late 70s.
I have never tried slicing ginger with my mandoline (where WAS yours?) so I need to give that a try.
When I saw your photos, I wondered how you got the red lentils to look so red — mine are always pink-ish orange, verging on ochre.
Great recipe, Jeff — I have tons of lentils so will give this a go.
Ottima con le lenticchie, e perfetta per queste fresche serate!
Very gingery 🙂 I love soup with legumes, so this hearty bowl is calling my name. And I love this fried ginger – such a nice touch!
I love the depth of thought you put into this! The balance between texture and blending, the careful approach to garnishes, and even the nostalgic dive into food co-op culture, it all adds so much personality to the dish. Thanks for sharing!
In the old days, before Whole Foods I used to make my own yogurt. Anyway, the soup sounds delicious. I like ginger but it can be hot and too much doesn’t work for me. My red lentil soups are usually kind of an orange mustard color.
C’est très gourmand avec ce mélange de saveurs.
Je te souhaite un bon dimanche.
Bizzz.
Mmm, this sounds delicious – Fried Ginger! I love that. *My daughter did a year at a student co-op. Her job was cooking the “family” meal on Sunday for a large group. She was already a good cook, and came out of it even better. A good experience to be sure.
Yeah, I’ll bet that was a great experience for you daughter!
Wait. No Whole Foods!? Say what? What type of caveman days were you living in, Jeff!? Just kidding, of course. I can’t believe I missed this post. The fried ginger popped right out at me and made me think, “Hmmm. I need to try this.” I’ve fried garlic before, but never ginger. This needs to be done in the name of science now.
I know, I’ve become a relic. I was just at the grocery story this morning, and picked up a few snacks to take with me on a flight I’m on this evening, as if that’s already “old man,” a couple snacks came to $50! And I was thinking that if people lived forever, I think prices might go up more slowly, because people like me would constantly be horrified by it, while there’s some young guy out there who’s probably thinking that $50 for a bag of nothing seems about right.