Coconut Curry Soup with Rice and Lentils

One of the presents I received for Christmas was the cookbook Bal's Quick & Healthy Indian by Bal Arneson.  She is one of my favorite cooks/chefs on The Cooking Channel.  She is always so pleasant to watch, and her recipes are amazing. 

I have been on an Indian food kick lately, and thankfully, a good deal of Indian food can usually be veganized, if it isn't already vegan.  I haven't tried to veganize any recipes that are made with a meat, but I want to create a vegan version of "butter chicken", which was one of my all-time favorite dishes as an omnivore.

I decided to make a couple recipes from this book for dinners this week.  The one I made tonight was "Coconut Curry Soup with Rice and Lentils".  It has been my experience that with Indian recipes a trip to an Indian grocery store is in order.  Not all of the spices or ingredients can be found at your local Whole Foods, Trader Joe's or Target.  Luckily, there is an excellent Indian grocery store in the area, and I was able to purchase all of the ingredients that were needed for this week's recipes.  I actually recommend buying a lot of the herbs and spices at your Indian store because they are usually found in larger bags; therefore, the per ounce dollar amount is much smaller.  Yes, you will be buying a lot and must use it in a timely manner.  I don't find this to be an issue because if you make a lot of Indian, Middle Eastern, Asian, etc. dishes, then your stock of herbs & spices will be used rather quickly; thus waste is minimized, if not altogether eliminated.

Common ingredients with a lot of the recipes in this book are grapeseed oil, cumin (seeds and/or ground), garam masala, curry leaves, garlic, ginger (fresh and/or ground), cilantro, coriander and chilies, among others.  This recipe called for brown rice, red lentils, celery, coconut milk and various herbs & spices, including curry leaves & ginger masala.  I was able to find the curry leaves at the Indian store.  The ginger masala is a medley of spices, like garam masala, and recipes for each are in the book as well.  I made my own ginger masala according to the book recipe, but I purchased the garam masala already prepared.  There was no real reason why I would make one and buy the other.  It was mainly for convenience.



The recipe was quite easy.  I am not a fan of celery, but it worked rather well in the soup.  It wasn't strong, and it didn't take over the flavor of the dish, as you sometimes find with other recipes that involve celery.  The herbs and spices gave the soup amazing flavor.  The brown rice & red lentils gave it body, and the coconut milk gave it creaminess and a hint of sweetness.  The jalapeno lended heat to the soup, and it wasn't too much.  I did, however, add red pepper flakes to my bowl to add some more heat. 

I do recommend this recipe as a lovely weeknight meal that you can make and more or less forget about while you take care of something else while it simmers away.