Absmc-cooking-lentil-soup [Music] I'm not cooking special. I'm just going to make food. Someone says they don't like lentils.
This is the recipe. Hope you guys are hungry. Okay? Yum. Okay. These are ready. Hello. And welcome to the Wellness for Life series.
Today we're going to be making a heart-healthy meal of lentil soup with roasted Kabocha squash. It's going to be delicious. So get excited.
First thing I'm going to do is turn on the heat to medium to low heat, because we're going to be sautéing our garlic and onions.
Now I chose this recipe because it is February, Valentine's Day, heart month. So I'm kind of thinking heart healthy.
Lentils is one of those foods that's on the top ten most healthy foods in terms of your heart.
So lots of fiber, lots of vitamins, minerals, nutrients those types of things. We've got a giant garlic cove that we're going to smash and peel.
You want to make a few incisions down the top. And then one incision through the middle. And then mince. Ooh, there's a big chunk in there.
Someone's going to be really happy...or not. I don't know. All right. And then we've got our onion. So a beautiful red onion.
You can use red or yellow. It doesn't matter at all. What you want to do is take off the top and then peel it. And then cut it in half.
And you will have this. So when you've got your half, put your hand solidly on the onion and make incisions, one, two, three, four.
And then a few down the top, because the recipe says to dice. So this is going to give you a really nice even dice. How is our heat?
Great. That's the first part of our mirepoix. It's kind of the triple threat of French cuisine.
Other cuisines have their other version of mirepoix. But our version which we're using today, celery, carrots and onions. Oh, this is really good.
Okay. So we want to get our celery and our carrot in. So the carrot, I have already peeled this one. You want to just cut off the end.
And whenever you're working with something round, you want to first create a flat surface, just like we did with our onion.
Slice it down the middle so you've got this. And you slice it again. And you've got really nice pieces that aren't too big.
You want everything to be uniform or else you'll get a big chunk of something. And this is a delicate soup. It's a ladylike soup.
Let's move those in. And then we've got our celery. Take off the ends, slice down the middle, and then again just chop.
The great thing about this soup, it's one of those things that you can really just throw together. Because lentils cook up in 30 minutes.
So if you already had these things prechopped, you could throw it together in a half an hour. Now, we've got our salt.
A very fine granulated sea salt. All right. This is coming up really nicely.
Just going to put the lid on it just for a second to keep that steam in and help this cook a little bit faster.
So the next thing I want to do is talk to you a little bit about these lentils. What I did -- and you can see here, they're kind of big.
And the reason why they're big is because I soaked them overnight. I generally do soak them, one, because they cook faster.
But then, two, supposedly when you soak a bean, especially a lentil, it helps digestion when you give them time to soak and plump up.
So these are a little extra big because they have been plumped. And it's not anything -- whew, facial.
Okay. I'm actually getting a nice caramelization on the onions and on the other vegetables because you want to create a layer of flavor first.
That's why we don't just throw everything into a pot and boil it. You want to kind of get things all tasting really good.
So I'm going to take our lentils. And now I'm turning it up to high. Because we want to bring it to a boil. Nice. Reduce it to a simmer.
And then let it cook for about 15 to 20 minutes. The next step on your recipe is to roast the kabocha squash.
Let me first say this is not actually necessary. This is a special little treat. It adds a depth of flavor.
But if you wanted to, you could cut up the kabocha and throw it in with your lentils and cook it all together that way.
What you want to do is cut it in half. The center is full of seeds like a pumpkin. You just scoop it out and then you peel it.
When you peel it, you're then left with this. So what you want to do, as you cut into quarters, is make half moons.
And then as it gets kind of more wobbly, just flip it over, and make -- beautiful. So then from here you can just cube it.
So you would throw these together with salt, pepper olive oil into an oven at 415. And roast it for 30,
40 minutes but at the 20 minute mark you want to mix them all up. So the next thing we want to do is our greens.
Now, you can use any greens you want with this. I am using a rainbow chard, which I love. Look at these colors. Just beautiful.
It's not even orange. It's like -- what color is this? Salmon. Just kidding.
So what you want to do is, if it has a big stalk, split the stalk down the middle. So we're going to split the stalk down the middle.
And then we're going to layer them. And then we're going to roll them. So I'll show you how that's going to work.
So as we layered, now we're going to chop the ends because the ends are going to go into the soup as well. Now we've got our big pile of greens.
We're going to roll them. As we roll and then chop, we are chiffonadeing. Does everyone chiffonade? Look at this. It's beautiful.
It's like a rainbow. All right. Then you've got these beautiful, thin greens, right? Really nice.
And at the very, very end you want to go one giant chop down the middle. Okay. And it's coming out to a boil. Oh, beautiful.
Now, as you look at your recipe, you'll see that this is a very simple dish.
The main ingredients are some aromatic, some lentils, some squash and then most of the seasoning is just coming from salt and olive oil.
And you'll see on your recipe that it says seven tablespoons of olive oil, and you may think that's a lot. But it's actually not.
Especially for a soup like this where the main flavor is coming from that rich oliviness. So don't skimp on it. Oh, you guys.
Oh, this is getting good. The greens are in. I'm putting in the kabocha. This is very attractive.
[Laughter] Oh, my gosh you guys, at this point I'm just loopy.
Okay. You want to use enough salt and you want to remember that beans absorb a lot of salt without giving off a lot of salty flavor.
So don't get too worried. This is a lot of soup. And the olive oil just makes an amazing broth.
And then we top it with a beautiful green parsley, which just gives it a nice little punch. And then you're set. So we'll take a little taste.
Heck, yeah. That is really good. That is a seriously delicious heart-healthy dish that you can make -- I know I said 20 minutes -- probably 40.
But it's really good. It is really, really good. So I hope that you try this at home. We'll see you next time.
I love how it's like we'll just make a really quick soup. Seven hours later. Thank you greens. I have issues. I got food issues.
You also just don't want soupy weirdo greens. That's a technical term.