Lentil soup and meat, blended

Remember I mention how healthy lentil is and how much use we have for lentil in Persian cuisine? Here!  Well, with the fall already settled in, this delicious and nutritious lentil soup is all I felt having this weekend.  I know lentil vegetable soup is probably one of the most diverse soup verities, yet this blended version with meat broth is different in many ways. You’ll see what I mean.

Ingredients:

• Veal, or beef, 150 gr. defatted.
• Bone, 1 medium.
• Brown lentil, 200 gr.
• Onion, 1 large, thinly sliced.
• Turmeric, ½ tea spoon.
• salt and black powder pepper, to taste.
• Water, 1 ½ liters.
• Oil, 1 tbsp.
• Whipping cream, 2 tbsp.
• Chopped parsley, 2 tbsp.

Method: In a medium pot sauté onions in hot oil. Add meat and bone and turmeric and fry for a few more minutes over medium heat, just as you would for any type of Iranian style stew. Add salt, pepper and six cups of water (bout 1 ½ liters). Cook covered, for about 45 minutes.  Remove the bone from the broth and let it cool; Extract the bone marrow and pick the meat off the bone, if any, and transfer them back to the pot.  Rinse lentil and add it to the broth and cook until tender.

Blend the pot’s contents, in two or more steps if necessary, until smooth. Pour it back to the pot and simmer for another 10 minutes, just in case you need to adjust the soup’s thickness (either by adding more warm water, or by letting it simmer to thicken a bit).

Once the look is to your liking, pour into a serving bowl and garnish with a sprinkling of whipping cream and chopped parsley.