Coconut Lentil Soup from Marc Samuelsson (sort of)

It's grey, raining and a bit chilly out. Perhaps the weather gods are getting me ready for a week in Seattle? But then my mom said that in Seattle it's sunny and supposed to be 90 degrees! What's going on?

But let's get back to this post: I feel like it's perfectly timed because today is the perfect day to make this Coconut Lentil Soup from Marc Samuelsson's blog. I originally saw the recipe in a tweet from Line. Right away I added it to my Pinterest (the latest obsession!) and finally made it this past weekend.

I used the lentils I brought back from Denver and was happy that I only had to pick up a few other ingredients for the soup at the store: the rest I already had on hand.

A quick note about making other people's recipes: read both the ingredient list and the list of directions all the way through. With this recipe, I noticed that you are supposed to garnish the soup with cilantro, but cilantro was not listed in the ingredients. Also, my soup took only 20 minutes to cook once it came to a boil instead of 40 minutes. Perhaps it's because I used a gas stove or maybe my lentils were slightly different than the ones used on Marc's blog.

At the end, the soup was pretty good, but I think you should DOUBLE the amount of spices. Also, I garnished my soup with citrus-pickled onions to give it a bit of brightness and color.

Coconut Lentil Soup

Ingredients (slightly altered from original recipe. If you make this, DOUBLE the spices)

1 tablespoon neutral oil (vegetable or canola)
1 large red onion, finely chopped
1/2 green chile, finely chopped
1 inch piece of ginger, peeled, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 cup lentils, rinsed, any stones removed
1 can coconut milk
3 cups water
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon turmeric
salt
black pepper
juice of 1 lime
cilantro
citrus-pickled red onions

Directions
1. Heat oil in a heavy bottomed soup pot. Add onions. Cook until the onions have softened.
2. Add chile, ginger and garlic, cover and cook for a few minutes.
3. Add lentils, spices, coconut milk and water. Season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, lower the heat, and cook covered for about 20 minutes, stirring frequently. {Notes: now that I've made this soup, I would do a few things differently: 1) add spices to the onion/ginger/garlic/chile mixture and cook for a few minutes to let their natural oils come out 2) double the amount of the spices}
4. Take the soup off the heat and add lime juice.
5. Serve garnished with cilantro and pickled onions.

(check out my new dishes from my trip to Denver)

What are you having for lunch/dinner today?