10 Minute Red Lentil Soup

This is a light variation of Turkish red lentil soup which I learned from my friend Lily, although I have made a few adjustments of my own. Lily uses onion, tomato purée and chicken stock, I use no onion, fresh tomatoes and just salt. I like to use flat leaf parsley because of its sweetnes, but curly parsley will also be fine. The sweet chili flakes (biber) are sold in most Turkish shops, but if you cannot find them, they can be substituted with ordinary sweet chili powder or 1/2 fresh, deseeded, chopped chili pepper. The recipe should be enough for a starter for 2 or main course for 1 person.

Ingredients :

• 2 dl (split) red lentils
• 7 dl water
• 3 medium size tomatos, chopped finely
• 1 clove garlic, chopped finely
• 1/2 - 1 tsp sweet chili flakes
• 1 good handful of freshly chopped flat leaf parsley
• ca. 1/2 tsp salt (or veg/chicken stock cube for 1/2 L)
  
• juice of 1/2 a lemon

How to:

1. Put the lentils and water into a soup pan on a medium-high heat.
   
2. While the lentils and water come to boiling, chop the other ingredients.
   
3. Add to the pan tomatos, garlic, chili flakes, salt and half of the parsley.
   
4. When the soup boils, reduce the heat and simmer under lid for ca. 10 minutes until the lentils are soft. If you would like a slightly creamier texture, you can use the pulse function on a handblender a few times to fluff up the soup, but make sure to keep some of the lentils' texture.
5. Scoop the soup into a bowl, squeeze out the lemon juice on top and garnish with the rest of the parsley. Enjoy!