Spring may not be in the air yet, but the idea of spring is certainly in the air. Days are growing longer and the bitter icy chill of winter has thawed to a not quite as bitter chill. In any case, I was recently looking to cook something that had the warming, filling effect of winter comfort food without being too heavy. I settled on lentil soup, and surfed around for a recipe to catch my eye. This recipe for lentil soup with italian sausage and escarole caught my attention. It looked easy and delicious, and I figured that the sausage would add a lot of flavor and some meatiness to the soup.
As it turned out, I wasn’t wrong. I stuck mainly to the recipe as published with a few minor exceptions. I added about a couple teaspoons of dried basil and oregano to the lentils as they simmered and doubled the amount of garlic in the soup base. The herbs definitely added some welcome flavor to the soup, and I’m glad I added them. If you aren’t as crazy about garlic as I am, then I wouldn’t recommend adding any additional. The soup turned out quite garlicky with my addition, and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
The soup was really easy to make and didn’t take very long to come together. Even though I was making this on the weekend, it easily could be a good weeknight meal (depending on how quickly you can chop your vegetables). There were no real tricky steps in the preparation of the soup, it was really straightforward.
I had it for lunch for practically an entire week, and I swear, it got better everyday as the flavors blended more and more. What I really liked is that there was a lot of body to the soup. Between the lentils and the vegetables there was a lot of chunkage going on in there. Because of the tomato paste (and the herbs that I added) the broth was really flavorful. With the escarole and sausage, this was almost trying to be an Italian Wedding soup, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
If I were to change anything the next time I made this (and I will be making it again), I would probably add more escarole. It certainly looked like a lot of greens when I added them to the pot, but they shrank away to practically nothing, as most greens are wont to do. Other than that, this soup was near perfect and went great with some sourdough bread!
Clacked by Bob Degon
on Mar 01, 2010 @ 10:00 EST5EDT
Nice post on lentil soup with Itallian flavors. Here’s a related (mine!) https://desigrub.com/2010/02/the-best-lentil-soup-with-or-without-a-crockpot/ for your reference. Let me know what you think.