Smoky Lentil Soup

One of the best ways to add depth of flavor to any dish is to give it a hint of smokiness, whether by grilling it over charcoal or wood, or adding a pre-smoked ingredient such as smoked paprika or bacon.

We've become pretty regular customers of a relatively new butcher called the Meat Hook, in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. They sell two kinds of slab bacon – regular and smoked. The smoked is really smoky, so much so that we usually just get a quarter or half pound, thickly sliced, and dice it up as needed to add flavor to our dishes. I understand that not everyone has access to a reliable butcher… in that case, regular packaged bacon will work just fine for this recipe, although I recommend seeking out slab bacon (pretty much every good supermarket carries it) and having the butcher cut you a few thick slices.

One of the recurring themes of our blog will be bacon. It's such a magical ingredient. But if you want to make a lentil soup with another meat besides bacon, you could certainly use ham (try the leftovers from a baked ham, bones and all, just make sure to remove before blending), pancetta, or even turkey. If you still want to make it smoky, you should try to find Spanish smoked paprika, or pimenton, which pretty much blows regular paprika out of the water. And of course, you can also add only the smoked paprika and make a pretty great vegetarian lentil soup.

But as I said, we prefer smoked slab bacon, and we adapted our recipe from The Best of Craig Claiborne, a highly recommended cookbook that my sister bought for me as a gift some years ago. Here's our version of the recipe, which has a few more ingredients in it than Mr. Claiborne's version:

Smoky Lentil Soup

Ingredients:

2 tbsp. butter
¼ lb. smoked bacon or ham, fat left on, diced
¼ c. coarsely chopped onions
½ c. coarsely chopped carrot
½ lb. dried lentils
5 c. fresh or canned chicken or vegetable stock
2 c. water
1 bay leaf
1 sprig fresh thyme or ¼ tsp. dried
½ tsp. of ground cumin
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Smoked paprika to taste (if you don't use smoked meat)
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Heat 1 tbsp. of the butter in a small kettle or deep saucepan and add the bacon/ham (bacon will take a bit longer to render and crisp) and onion. Cook briefly until the onion wilts. Add the carrots, lentils, 4 c. of the broth, smoked paprika (if using), cumin, and cayenne. Add the remaining ingredients, bring just to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer 30 to 40 min.

Remove about a cup of the soup with lentils/carrots (or more if you prefer a thicker soup) and set aside to cool briefly, then blend (careful that it's not too hot!) until smooth. Add blended soup back to kettle along with remaining 1 c. of broth, bring to boil, turn off heat, and swirl in remaining tbsp. of butter.

Serve with warm crusty bread (or biscuits) and butter.







We paired this with a 2007 Terre Di Corzano Chianti and it was a nice match. Beer would also pair well: a saison, or something lightly smoky, like Aecht Schlenkerla Helles Lagerbier.