Shorbet Ads or Shorabat Addas (Red Lentil Soup)

Shorbet Ads or Shorabat Addas (Red Lentil Soup)

The split pea soup thread reminded me of my experiments with this ancient red lentil soup of Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean. Split red lentils, under the Ziyad brand (just called red lentils) are pretty easy to find, at least in the West Rogers Park area. Even the Jewel at Howard and Kedzie carries them, and I find them at a number of stores on Devon or at Lincolnwood Produce.

In fact the Ziyad bag has a pretty decent recipe on the back for this most basic of soups, which is really a pottage or porridge. The split red lentils cook faster than the brown ones and break down pretty quickly. The pretty orangey-red color of the raw lentils turns to a yellow-orange when cooked.

There is a very good recipe for the shorbet ads in Claudia Roden’s The Book of Jewish Food—a book fascinating to read but not always reliable to cook from. Roden notes that the red pottage the ravenous Esau is supposed to have sold his birthright to Jacob for may well have been this dish. So it’s been around for a good long while. Two main variations she gives are to top the finished soup with nearly caramelized onions or croutons fried in oil with crushed garlic. We love the croutons version.

Shorbet Ads (Red Lentil Soup), modified from Claudia Roden, The Book of Jewish Food

1 large onion, finely chopped
16 oz. (2 cups) red lentils, washed
6 cups liquid—chicken or meat stock or water (I have used either canned chicken stock or water, depending on what I have on hand)
salt and pepper to taste
1 teaspoon cumin
juice of ½ lemon or more
Serve with extra virgin olive oil to trickle on top and/or
small bread croutons, toasted or fried with olive oil and crushed garlic,
or
1 large onion, coarsely chopped (can also add garlic), fried in 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil until very brown, almost caramelized.

Place onion, lentils, stock or water, and a little salt and pepper in soup pot. Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes, or until the lentils have disintegrated. Add water if it seems too thick. Stir in cumin and lemon juice and adjust the seasoning—you might want more lemon juice or salt. The Ziyad bag uses half cumin and half turmeric (or paprika), but my family likes the straight cumin version better.

This is a ridiculously easy but great winter soup—hearty, healthy, and cheap. I’m still exploring the variations and would love to hear what others do.

Evy

Evy, this soup idea of yours got a bit under my skin this week. It bounced around in my brain - though, I wasn't in the mood for a straight-up lentil porridge, lovely though it sounds - but what with the piles and piles of snow outside, I really, really wanted something thick and rich and lentil-y.

So, today at the Jewel (emergency shopping, I forgot my list, knew we needed eggs, oatmeal and cleaner - $140 later I came home with eggs, no cleaner, no oatmeal) I noticed they had nice-looking trays of smoked pork neckbones for $1/lb. Instantly, I thought of lentil soup, so I brought those home, tossed them into the pressure cooker with a lot of water, carrots, a couple tomatoes and a sliced-up onion. I cooked these for 15 minutes or so and then added lentils: I happened to have both red and green, so in they went. Another 10 minutes in the cooker, and then I opened her up, took out the pork, added some potatoes, escarole and herbs and cooked a bit more. I then shredded the meat and added it, served it up with crusty bread. The red lentils dissolved, giving me that hearty texture you describe. Lovely.

Lentils really make for a special winter soup.

Mhays wrote:Lentils really make for a special winter soup.

Michele,
They do, don't they? Your soup sounds delicious. The basic lentil pottage is so elemental and yet so satisfying at this time of year. It sounds as if you get good use out of your pressure cooker for soup-making; I have been a little scared of getting one but am intrigued. My similar grocery Sunday run to the loathsome Dominick's netted a roasting chicken, as well as most of what I went out to get. A fat roasted chicken basted with butter, fresh tarragon, and leftover Prosecco that made terrific gravy was the basis of a great, filling dinner on a cold night.

I've had a somewhat tumultuous relationship with pressure cookers since I got married and the Hays side of the family brought them into my kitchen. I've owned four so far: two were inherited from my Grandmother-in-law, both of which were very old-fashioned with the spinner-thing on the top and which scares the willies out of me. The two I bought were more modern: the first was cheap, a little difficult to thread correctly and thus it bent and became just a pot. The one I have now (it's brand-new, so I can't speak to how it will perform over time) doubles as a canner - it's a huge 10-quart pot, which means I'm less nervous about overfilling, especially with things like soup.

A tad off-topic...

In this weather, we've been partial to using split yellow peas in the same manner, for a similar kind of soup. And...some good friends of ours recently opened a Polish deli up in Round Lake (we're in Mundelein), and we've been buying smoked pork butt, bought that day in Chicago, to slice into the soup.

Some for now, and we've been freezing the balance in quart bags to go off to college with Daughter #1.