A Kitchen Primer

A long time ago, I used to make lentil soup from a recipe I cut out of the Wednesday NY Times. Somewhere along the line I lost the recipe. This week, I decided to try to recreate it.

I remembered several features of the recipe clearly:

• It had only 3 ingredients: lentils, rice, and onions.   Well, four if you include salt.  Five if you count water.
• It was cooked in three stages: add an ingredient, cook for a while; add the second, cook for a while longer; add the third, cook for a while longer.
• The onions were to be cut in wedges, and sauteed until till they were caramelized dark brown.  (Okay, six ingredients: olive oil)
• I was pretty sure you started with the lentils.
• It was supposed to be Greek.

So Sunday I made a batch, using a cup each of lentils and rice, one big sweet onion, and 6 cups of water.  I figured rice and lentils both needed 2 parts water to cook, so 6 cups would be enough to make the soup thick but not solid.

I started the lentils, an hour later added the onion, and an hour after that, the rice.  Total cooking time: 3 hours.

Somewhere after I added the rice I discovered I needed more water – turns out 6 cups wasn’t nearly enough.   I ended up adding it several times, and still had something more akin to risotto than to soup.  The good news was that it was tasty.  The onion pretty much disappeared, but I’m sure its influence was felt.

So, here’s the recipe as I’ll make it next time:

Greek Lentil Soup

• 1 cup lentils
• 2 large Spanish or Vidalia onions
• 1 cup white long-grained rice
• 8 cups water (this is still a guess)
• olive oil to saute the onions
• salt to taste

1. Put the lentils and water in a saucepan and simmer for 1 hour.  Add salt to taste.
2. Peel the onions and cut them into wedges, about 12 per onion
3. Saute the onions in olive oil until they are well browned on both sides.  This will take 5 to 10 minutes per side.  Do not let the onions burn (i.e. turn black)
4. Add the onions to the pot and simmer another hour.
5. Add the rice to the pot and simmer another hour.  Stir occasionally as the soup will tend to stick to the bottom of the pot.   Add water if necessary.
6. Adjust seasoning (i.e. salt) and serve.  The soup should be thick but not so thick you could eat it with a fork.

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Quick & easy red sauce for pasta. Meatless tomato sauce does not benefit from long simmering;  this one takes about 20 to 30 minutes to cook. I usually start the water for the pasta first, then start the sauce while the water heats up.

Ingredients:

• 1 large can plum tomatoes.
• A couple of cloves of garlic.
• A few anchovies (packed in oil).
• Enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pot.
• Salt to taste (approximately 1/2 tsp, depending on saltiness of anchovies & tomatoes)
• Hot pepper flakes to taste

Pour the olive oil into a saucepan & heat.

Peel & chop the garlic & add to the pan.  Let the garlic cook until it just begins to brown.

Add the anchovies.  Mash them with a wooden spoon, or better, a wooden spatula.  Both the anchovies and the garlic pieces will dissolve into the sauce later on, so don’t go too crazy with the mashing.

Immediately add the tomatoes.  Either chop them roughly before adding them, or chop them in the pot with the wooden spatula.

Add salt to taste if desired.  Some tomatoes are packed with salt, some (mostly the Italian imports) are not.

Add hot pepper flakes to taste – this shouldn’t be overtly spicy, but a little heat can be nice.

Adjust the heat till the sauce is just boiling.  Cook for about 20 to 30 minutes.

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OK, I finally installed WordPress.

My daughter Amelia is home for the summer, the last before she graduates college.  And she’s been asking for recipes for some of her favorites.  So the first thing this blog will get used for is those recipes.  We’ll see what evolves after that.

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