[Chat] Armenian red lentil soup with apricots

[Stephen J Gewirtz]

At Odette's birthday party at her place last night, several people asked 
me to send out the recipe for the soup I brought.  The recipe comes from 
Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure  by Lorna J. Sass.  This (and 
some other excellent cookbooks for using a pressure cooker by the same 
author) are available from www.bn.com and www.amazon.com .  I have 
modified the recipe a little bit to use an entire package of red lentils 
(the recipe in the book uses about 3/4 of a one pound package) and to 
increase both the sweet (the dried apricots) and the sour (the lemon 
juice).  Also, while I will mention salt, I actually did not use any, 
and I almost never use salt in my cooking because of high blood 
pressure.  So, here is the recipe:

Place the following ingredients in the pressure cooker:

About 5.5 cups of water or a little bit more.

1.5 cups of coarsely chopped onions.

One 1 pound package of dried red lentils (remove any obvious impurities, 
and then put the lentils in a strainer and rinse them, then dump them in 
the pressure cooker).  I got them from Whole Foods, but they are also 
available in Indian markets.

One half cup or a little bit more of finely chopped dried apricots.  I 
got unsulphured Turkish dried apricots at Whole Foods.

1.5 cup coarsely chopped fresh or canned (drained) plum tomatoes.  I 
used fresh tomatoes from the Farmers' Market.

One heaping measuring teaspoon dried marjoram or oregano leaves.  Last 
night, I used oregano.

One heaping half teaspoon dried thyme leaves.  (Note: the "heaping" is 
because I increased the original recipe.)

Stir everything, put the top on the pressure cooker, and bring to 
pressure (15 p.s.i., the higher pressure on most pressure cookers).  
After it comes to pressure, cook 4 minutes.  Then, turn off the heat and 
let the cooker depressurize.  After the pressure drops a bit, you can 
open the valve to speed up depressurization or you can just wait.  When 
it has depressurized, remove the lid, add water if it is too thick, and 
add juice from 2 lemons, freshly ground pepper, and salt if you use 
salt.  You can also garnish the soup with some minced fresh parsley.

I have not tried cooking this without a pressure cooker, but I suspect 
that the only change in the recipe would be to cook it in your soup pot 
for 20 to 30 minutes (taste it to see when it appears to be done).

Steve.