Red Lentil Soup

* About a cup of red lentils or masoor.
* 1 tsp ground jeera (cumin), pinch each of dhania (coriander) powder, pepper flakes,regular pepper, sea-salt, turmeric.
* 2-3 cloves chopped garlic, 1 tsp chopped ginger.
* 3/4-1 cup chopped onion.
* 3-4 baby carrots, chopped.
* 4 cups water.
* 2.5 tbsps olive oil.
* 1 tbsp tomato sauce/paste.
* 1cup coconut milk.


Heat oil, saute garlic, onions, ginger. Add carrots. Then add the tomato sauce. Later add all the spices, including salt.

Saute, then add 3 cups water and let boil. Add the washed lentils. Bring water to boil then cook on low-medium heat.

Cooks in about 20 minutes or even less. I added about a cup of water again, as the consistency was too thick. Then I pureed all of it. Tasted great, but could have cut back a bit on the heat. May be fewer ginger pieces or pepper flakes.

Then heat again, adding coconut milk. Bring to rolling boil, simmer and turn it off in a couple minutes.

turns out a tad coconutty. Don't know if its because the milk was added when hot. But not overpowering. Transferred to bowl, garnished with cilantro and few drops of lemon juice.

Tastes really good!

Ought to be healthy too. Hopefully the lentils are good enough to compensate for the coconut milk and olive oil. Ala the Amateur Gourmet's food negation theory.

Note: Pardon the tenses. Result of experimenting with live spoon by spoon blogging.
Also, recipe adapted from here and here.