Cumin is one of my favourite spices. It brings such a lovely warm, earthy flavour to dishes and I regularly use it when roasting vegetables for salads, or when making soups.
I've used mild chilli, as I didn't want the heat to overpower the fragrant cumin, but do use regular chilli if you prefer more heat. It's quite a thick soup, but simply add more stock if you like your soup a little thinner.
Extra virgin olive oil
25g butter
1 medium white onion
2 sticks of celery
600g carrots
100g red lentils
2 garlic cloves
2 teaspoon of ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon of mild chilli
900ml vegetable stock
Seasoning
1 tablespoon of cumin seeds
- Roughly chop the onion, carrots and celery.
- Melt the butter and a drizzle of olive oil, in a heavy bottomed pan, over a medium to low heat.
- Once the butter has melted, add the chopped vegetables and stir well.
- Cover and cook on a low heat for 20 minutes.
- Add the crushed garlic, cumin and chilli to the buttery carrots and cook for a further 2-3 minutes.
- Add the red lentils and stir to combine.
- Pour in the hot stock and then season.
- Bring to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for 20-25 minutes or until the carrots are soft.
- Blend the soup until is smooth.
- Heat a frying pan over a medium heat with no oil.
- Once the pan is hot, add the cumin seeds. Shake the pan (or stir) to keep the seeds moving. As soon as the seeds release a fragrant aroma, remove from the pan.
- Use the seeds to garnish the soup.
