Ask a chef reveals the secrets of those superb dishes you ate in cafes and reastaurants and wanted to try yourself. This week, the Bank Cafe’s roast vegetable and red lentil soup.
The Bank Cafe’s roast vegetable and red lentil soup
Serves 6
Ingredients
2 orange kumara peeled, cut into chunks
2 carrots peeled and sliced
¼ cup olive oil
2 red capsicum, seeded and cut into chunks
1 red onion, roughly chopped
2 garlic gloves, peeled
2 425g cans chopped tomatoes, in juice
1 ½ litres chicken or vegetable stock
1 cup red lentils
Method
Preheat oven to 180degC.
Toss kumara and carrots in half the olive oil, season to taste and bake for about half an hour. Add capsicum, onion and garlic cloves. Toss with remaining olive oil and bake a further 30 minutes.Transfer vegetable mixture to a large soup pot.
Add stock and tinned tomatoes. Take out about a quarter of the mixture and pulse with a stick blender, then return this to the pot.
Bring to the boil, add red lentils.
Reduce to simmer, cover and cook for 20-25 minutes, stirring regularly to avoid sticking.
• Recipe requested by Elaine Fletcher, of Cromwell. Supplied by The Bank Cafe, in Clyde.
• If you have enjoyed a dish in an Otago cafe or restaurant and would like the recipe, write to Ask a Chef, Features, Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, Dunedin, fax 474-7422, or email odt.features@odt.co.nz, including your name, address and a daytime telephone number, and we will request it.
