Enough to fill 10 soup bowls!
Ingredients:
1 onion
1 leek
3 carrots
2 sticks celery
3 x tablespoons garlic oil
500g red lentils
3 litres vegetable OR chicken stock
500g vacuum-packed peeled chestnuts
125ml sherry
salt and pepper
For serving:
small bunch of parsley (optional)
1 teaspoon garlic oil
10 rashers streaky bacon
- Finely chop (either by hand or using a food processor) the onion, leek, carrots and celery.
- Heat the oil in a large pan and add the chopped vegetables, cook for about 10 mins until softened a little.
- Add the lentils and stir.
- Add the stock, bring to the boil, then simmer for about 40 minutes.
- Add the chestnuts and liquidize the soup with a hand blender or in a food processor, adding more water if it's too thick. However, if you're going to serve it at a later time, don't bother adding water now, as the soup will inevitably thicken as it stands.
- When you want to eat the soup, heat it inthe pan along with the sherry, adding more water if needed, and season with salt and pepper to taste.
- While it's warming up, finely chop the parsley (if using) and heat the garlic oil in a frying pan.
- Fry the streaky bacon until it is crisp and scorched, then remove it onto some kitchen paper. Crumble the bacon into bits.
- As you serve the soup sprinkle with parsley if you wish and bacon bits.
Mmmmm delicious, enjoy!
I have also done this soup without the sherry and it was still very tasty.
