Eat Drink Man Weblog

I apologize for my extended and unannounced absence. Last fall I returned to St. John’s College in a desperate bid to finally get my hands on a college degree. It was a plan so crazy that it just might work: in just under two months I stand to graduate. But academia has spent many a month drinking my writing juice to its dregs.

Luckily I just enjoyed a brief reprieve from the ravenous, inhuman thirst of higher education– spring break. I have treasured my time with Darwin, Enstien, Nietzsche and Tolstoy. But when I slid my backpack off my shoulders and parked my ass on the couch, I celebrated my vacation with my first love: The Simpsons.

In 1995 the Simpsons was solidly in its golden age. Bart learned the cost of selling his soul. Homer realized a dream of working from home through hyper-obesity. And in one of the show’s few enduring character developments, Lisa became a vegetarian. And now that I have season seven on DVD, I can obsessively memorize every joke just like I did in middle school.

But unlike my middle school former self, I now live in an age which offers us the world’s most ingenious and profound technical wonder: the DVD extra. And disc one of season seven of The Simpsons holds a wonderful extra indeed: Paul and Linda McCartney’s favorite lentil soup recipe.

Even jet-setting culinary dynamos like me can get into ruts. It’s just too easy to just grab lunch at the subway next to your job for months in a row. It’s quick. It’s edible. And you can get your food and eat quickly enough that you can still squeeze a trip to the drugstore in over your lunch break. But if you keep your mind open, you can always find a new excuse for a culinary adventure. If the dvd bonus feature from a cartoon sitcom can move me to make a batch of lentil soup, the world will never run out of excuses to play with your food.

And you couldn’t ask for a better playmate than the lentil. Lentils are cheap. Kept in an airtight container in a dry place they will last almost forever. Unlike other dried beans, they can be cooked without soaking. They have a hearty, fulfilling flavor that makes them seem almost meaty in a dish, so lentils are a wonderful asset to the vegetarian. But even with their heartiness, they don’t overpower subtler flavors, so they work wonderfully with floral notes.

The McCartney recipe had my mouth watering. But it was recorded in order to be included backwards in the rendition of Maybe I’m Amazed which played over the closing credits. As joke-backwards-recipies-which-must-be-shorter-than-television-credits go, it is a fairly impressive recipe. But it lacks punch in the specificity department.

So I turned to my two main culinary muses: Cook’s Illustrated Magazine and Alton Brown. The cook’s illustrated recipe for “hearty lentil soup” looked promising. It had volume estimations for the ingredients, which is always a plus. What exactly is a medium onion? It had a tiny splash of balsamic vinegar to be added at the end which sounded like it would introduce a wonderful tart note to the soup. But it lacked the celery that was featured in both the McCartney and Brown soups. Furthermore, Brown calls for Grains of Paradise, a specialty spice which I had just happened to buy off Amazon only a few days before. I decided to make a hybrid recipe.

JP’s Spring-Break Lentil Soup:

You won’t need a lot of special equipment. Bare minimum you could scrape by with: A cast iron Dutch oven, or large stock pot, a wooden spoon, and your favorite knife and cutting board.

2 tablespoons butter. (Substitute Olive Oil for a vegan soup, or 3 slices of bacon, chopped, for omnivores.)
8 ounces onion finely chopped. (That’s one large or two small onions, about one and
a half cups.)
5 ounces carrot finely chopped. (That’s two medium carrots, about one cup.)
3 ounces celery finely chopped. (That’s two medium stalks, about half a cup.)
3 medium gloves garlic, minced, grated, or pressed.
a 14.5 ounce can of diced tomatoes.
1 bay leaf.
8 ounces lentils. (That’s just over one cup. You can also eyeball half of a one pound bag.)
2 teaspoons kosher salt.

½ teaspoon grains of paradise.
¼ teaspoon ground coriander.

Stage One: The Softening

¼ cup dry white wine.
¼ cup sherry.
4 ½ cups vegetable broth. (Substitute chicken broth for omnivores.)
1 ½ cup water.

Stage Two: liquid

1 ½ teaspoons basalmic vinegar.
3 tablespoons minced parsley (about three handfuls of leaves.)

Stage Three: Endgame

General strategy:

The list of ingredients is divided into those three groups because there are three steps to this soup: soften, simmer, and endgame. Step one is designed to soften all your vegetables so that they offer the right degree of tenderness in the final soup. Step two introduces the liquids and in order to cook and plump up the lentils. And the endgame adds a flavor boost right before serving. I recommend prepping all the ingredients from step one before you start the dish – when you add garlic to the pot, it won’t need to cook for very long before your next step. It’s best if you have your tomatoes can open and ready to go, or else you risk scorching your garlic.

Place your butter in your large pot over medium high heat. Let rig heat up for a couple minutes until the butter has gotten hot. (If you have substituted bacon, you have to let the pot soak up heat until the fat has rendered out of the bacon – you’ll know you are done when the bacon gets crispy and smells delicious.) Add your onions, carrots, and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, for about two minutes.

You'll only need to stir occasionally

Add the garlic and cook, stirring, until it starts to give off its trademark, garlicly scent. (It should take about 30 seconds. Add the can of tomatoes and their liquid, and the bay leaf. Cook for another 30 seconds, stirring. Add your lentils, salt, grains of paradise, and coriander. Stir until the lentils are evenly distributed.

Just get everything mixed together

Cover your pot. Reduce heat to medium low. Let the lentils cook for 8 to 10 minutes. Add your white wine and sherry. Increase the heat to high. Wait until the wine begins to simmer. Then add your broth and water. Wait until the liquid comes to a boil. Partially cover your pot, reduce to low heat, and let the soup simmer for 30-35 minutes, or until your lentils are tender. Remove the sharp, inedible bay leaf. It has done its job.

Don't forget to take out the bay leaf!

If you like your soup creamier, hit the soup with an immersion blender until it has the desired consistency. When you are ready to serve, stir in the vinegar, and all but one handful of the parsley. Dish into bowls, garnish with a pinch of the remaining parsley, and eat up.