Roasted Tomato & Lentil Soup
roast the tomatoes on a low heat from onions & garlic, blitz tomatoes add some spices, and lentils cook off in oven or on a very low heat until lentils are tender. Portion and freeze for quick nutritiouus meals.
Equipment
- 1 Large pan
- 3 pyrex or stainless trays
- 1 large bowl mainly to hold cooked ingredients
Ingredients
- 5 kg vine tomatoes nicely ripened are best if possible
- 1.25 kg yellow onions
- 2 bulbs garlic
- 8 tbsps ground cummin can add 10 if you like cummin
- 8 cubes veg stock good quality -
- 1 tbsp soy sauce can add 2 if you like
- 500 g split red lentils you can use a few more maybe up to 700 but that's about the limit.
- 1 tube tomato puree
- 2 teasps chilli powder 3 or 4 if you like chilli - adds a little heat - but omit if you hate chilli
- 3 cans chopped tomatoes bulks it out
- 50 g fresh ginger
- 3 litres filtered water
- 100 g extra virgin olive oil that's a rough guess I didn't measure - just use enough!
Instructions
- wash & halve the tomatoes, taking out the green stem connector on both halves putting a cross cut in the round side
- Around now turn on the oven to 150°C fan so it's ready when the tomatoes are ready.
- Oil the trays, and arrange the tomato halves as close as possible
- make a cross cut in the top of each half tomato with a serrated knife.
- brush each tomato generously with olive oil.
- put the filled trays in the oven and leave to start cooking. We'll lower the temperature after a bit.
- Cut the onions in half top to root. Cut off both ends and remove peel.
- Cut roughly into 4 (or 9 pieces if you wish) and place in food processor & pulse blitz until reasonably well chopped. You can dice finely by hand but it's a lot easier to blitz chop them in the food processor if you have one. Don't over do it though - they want to be fairly small pieces but not mush.
- After the first batch put the large pan on with a nice amount of extra virgin olive oil on a low heat,
- put the first batch in the bowl while you do the second batch of onions, then tip the whole lot in the pan and give it a good stir round. Turn up the heat so it's a low medium. Make sure to stir it every few minutes - it will take around 30 - 40 minutes to get them nice and soft and a little brown. It works best to cover it for say the first 10 minutes to keep the heat in, then remove the lid so the water get's driven off - if you do they won't brown properly. As the cooking goes on make sure to adjust by lowering the heat to stop them sticking & burning.
- While the onions are cooking, you can sort the garlic out. Peel all the cloves and either use a garlic press - or cheat like I do with a kitchen aid mini grinder - much quicker and easier. Add to the onions in the pan - when done - after around 5 to 10 minutes.
- Next tackle the fresh ginger - cut off any manky bits and either chop finely or blitz in a kitchen aid mini grinder and add to the pan with the onions
- Check the slowly roasting tomatoes - it should be around 30 minutes and they should be looking like they are pretty soft and cooked - but not really brown at all. You can turn the oven down to 125°C of leave it at 150°C but you'll need to keep a close eye on it so the don't burn. You'll definitley need to turn them down after an hour or so. Total cooking time is around 2 hours.
- As the onions come to a nicely browning stage add the cummin and chilli and mix in well - allow to cook for a few minutes longer to develop the flavour - but don't let it burn. Once done - tip out into the large bowl.
- Once the tomatoes are nice and brown and really well roasted, but not burnt, remove from the oven and put in the large pan - no need to wash it - just chuck them in and then give them a reasonable blend with a stick blender. You're not try to make a puree, but they need to be fairly well broken up.
- Once that's done, you can add the onions back in and all the other bits: tomato puree, cans of tomatoes, crumbled stock cubes, soy sauce, water, & of course the lentils!
- Then bring to the boil. Once boiling, you can either simmer it on a very low heat, or put back in the oven on 125°C heat and cook on for around 45 minutes to an hour. The lentils need to be quite soft, but not too broken up.
- Eat some now, and portion up the rest into 325g lots in plastic take-away containers or similar and freeze. Makes around 22 portions.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!