Fakes Soup - Greek Lentil Soup
Everyone who knows me knows, Greek cuisine is one of my favourite to cook.
I love Greek food. And back in Germany, we often visited our favourite Greek restaurant.
In Germany, Greek cooking is a bit different. We were a bit disappointed the first years, when we realised,
Aussie Greek food is not the same. The menus often not even show the great things German Greek restaurants offer.
Like Bifteki for example. Anyway.
I spend 2 holidays on the beautiful island of Crete! I love it.
Fakes Soup was served to me on my holiday visit in Sissi. It was a small hotel with home cooking.
Yes, home cooking. The owners of the Pension/Hotel were pretty passionate about their food.
And there was not one dish I could not enjoy. Oh, wait a minute,... there actually was! Snails!
We had to choose our entry between this lentil soup and snails this one day. My parents choose the soup,
I choose the snails. I never had snails before. So I thought,... you can eat lentil soup all day at home (because German lentil soup also is very popular and often cooked at my home),... so lets go for the snails.
Well, bad decision. I already was full when the snails arrived at the table. The whole thing in its house.
I tried one,... really had to get myself together to not spit it out,... and left the rest on the plate.
Nope, this is pretty disgusting was my opinion.
I was pretty angry at myself, that I haven't choosen the soup, haha.
My parents shared their lentil soups with me,... and I was stunned,
that this soup tasted different to our German version.
It was easy to see how this soup was cooked.
So we also cooked it at home, and it was as good as the one we ate in Sissi.
So, now you know the story how I came to this soup :-)
For this recipe, I also added my own touch. I also replace the vinegar part with lemon juice.
You can cook this soup ahead. It even tastes better the next day. But is also fine to eat straight away.
But please give it some resting time before you eat it. 1 hour should be fine.
The soup develops all flavours with time!
I cooked a big pot of the soup. I guess this is around 4 - 6 serves. Depends on your plating.
When you are a small plate eater, this will last all week for you, haha.
The soup is also great to freeze of course.
Preparation time is around 30 minutes
Cooking time around 45 minutes without the frying time.
Frying time approx. 10min.
To give it the best nutrients etc you can, without nasties, try to get as many ingredients as possible, organic!
Ingredients:
600g brown (European) lentils - soaked in water for 2 hours
400g potatoes - quartered (leave skin on if you like, I do)
150g carrot - quartered
300g Zucchini - quartered
150g Celery with the greens - halved and sliced, greens chopped
100g red capsicum - quartered
150g cherry tomatoes
100g onion - chopped
10g ( 3 cloves) garlic - finely chopped
2 stalks spring onion - sliced
1-2 tbsp organic cold pressed extra virgin olive oil for frying
Herbs and Spices:
1,5 tsp pink salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
2,5 tsp dry Oregano
1/2 tsp organic cinnamon
1 tsp smoked paprika powder
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 middle sized bayleafe (fresh if possible)
1/2 tbsp maple syrup
5 tbsp organic passata tomato
1,5l filtered water
Direction:
1. Soak lentils in water at least 2 hours.
2. Prepare all veggies. Wash, cut, chop,...
3. Heat the olive oil in a big pot and fry the onions until slightly golden. Add potatoes and corrots.
Fry for 5 minutes and stir constantly to not burn it. Add the other veggies as well and mix well.
4. Deglaze with the water and add the lentils.
5. Bring to the boil for a minute and turn down to a simmer. Add all herbs and spices.
6. Reseason if neccessary. Simmer for about 45 minutes (until veggies are done) and turn off the heat.
Leave soup for one hour rest on the stove before you serve.
7. ENJOY
Greek cuisine, one of the best in the world in my opinion.
I LOVE Greek cuisine. I always cook the Greek food I know. like I know it from German Greek restaurants.
The food is different to Australian Greek restaurants. Well, the ones we visited so far.
Rice noodles are a common side dish in Greek cuisine. We also got this side served when we visited Crete.
I had a pretty big eggplant in my fridge and I actually wanted to cook a Lasagne, haha. But my taste buts really crave for Greek today. So Greek stuffed eggplant it is. I created this recipe --- Inspired by some Greek dishes. The stuffing really is great, I not even used any kind of meat replacement! Not necessary at all. And when you want this dish gluten free, just leave the bread!
I used the flesh of 1 big eggplant - cubed, 1\4 red and 1\4 of a green capsicum - small cubed, 1,5 cups walnuts - processed to mince, 1 slice multi-grain bread - fine cubed, 1\2 a onion - chopped, 2 bigger cloves of garlic - chopped, 3 sprigs fresh thyme, 5 sprigs fresh oregano, 2 tbsp dry oregano, 3-4 tbsp passata tomato or 2 tbsp tomato paste, 1 pinch seasalt, approx. 6 tbsp soy sauce, a generous splash olive oil --- you also can sprinkle a bit of nutritional yeast on it. But I actually like it more without. So it is up to you.
For the risonies:
2 cups of cooked risonie's, fresh Dill, 1 tbsp tomato paste, 1 splash olive oil, 1\2 tsp Dutch cinnamon and a pinch of sea salt.
And check here in the recipe for the Zaccici ( just copy and paste into a new tab)-
http://veggie-art.weebly.com/dips-and-spreads
I was invited to a class reunion. The lovely host cooked specially for me some vegan dishes.
All was very delish --- but she also cooked a Gyros Soup. Non vegan. But I was very inspired by her soup, because I never heard of a Gyros Soup before. Unfortunately, I forgot to ask for the recipe. But no worries, I googled and checked on recipes. I was not happy with one of them, but got ideas. So I created my own soup. And WOW - how delishous. My partner was so delighted, he told me how good my soup was and gave me all his thumbs up :-)
Here is what you need:
1 package Fry's stripes marinated with: 2 tbsp dry oregano, 1 tbsp dry majoran, 1\2 tsp thyme, 1 tbsp sweet paprika, 1 tsp chili powder, 3\4 tsp dutch cinnamon.
3 middle sized potatoes with thier skin on - small cubed, 2 big cloves of garlic - chopped, 1\2 small onion - chopped, 2 small zucchinis - cubed, 1 can kidney beans, 1 can butter beans, 2 cups frozen chopped mixed capsicum, 1 red chili - sliced, 2 slices of lemon, 3 sprig fresh thyme, 200ml vegan cream, 100ml dry white wine of your choice, 1 litre Massels beef style stock (I mixed hot water with half of a package liquid essence), 2,5 - 3 tbsp tomato paste, 1 splash sunflower oil for frying, 3 tbsp olive oil, 2 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tsp coconut sugar, seasalt for seasoning.
Greek Stir Fry with Zaccici and Rice-Noodles - YUM.
This lunch was so delicous, I love it!
This is a quick and easy dish to make. Rice noodles are always served as side in German Greek restaurants. So I always love to make this as side.
To make a great Zaccici, please have a look at my recipe here:
http://veggie-art.weebly.com/dips-and-spreads.html
(Just copy and paste the link!)
To make the rice noodles, just cook some raisini noodles. When ready add Nuttelex sunflower margarine, tomato paste and a dash of cinnamon.
For the stir fry you need:
Approx. 200g firm tofu - cubed, 2 small eggplants - cubed, 1 big zuccini - cubed, 1 small red onion - sliced, 2 tsp dry oregano, 1\2 tsp dutch cinnamon to marinate the tofu, seasalt and black pepper.
Start with the eggplant. Cube and add to a bowl. Add a good amount of seasalt to bring the eggplant "to cry". It will water and that's what we want. When the eggplant starts to sweat, dry with paper towels. When you done the eggplant, start with the tofu. Dry the tofu, cube and season with salt. Heat some sunflower oil into a frying pan and fry the cubes golden on each side. Remove from pan. Put on paper towel to get rid of the oil and place into a bowl. Let it cool down a bit. Season with cinnamon and oregano - set aside.
This dish is a recipe from my mum - well, half of it. She always told me about her Greek Zucchini dish and I wanted to see the recipe. This recipe was the basis for my recipe I created. The result is simply DELICIOUS.
You can vary this dish with whatever veggies you like. You also can add kalamata olives to support the taste. But for this dish I decided against it, because I just wanted to be the zucchini the star of this dish.
Zucchinis are very good for the human body. On middle sized zucchini (approx.196g) contains approx. 33mg Vitamine C, 8,4mgVitamine K , 33mg Mangnesium, 29,4 mg Calcium, 514mg Potassium, 86,8 mg Folate and 92,1 mg Omega 3 fatty acids. One middle sized zucchini only has 31,4 cal (131kj) from Carbohydrate - 22,6cal, Fat - 3,0, Protein - 5,8.
So, Zucchini is a perfect vegetable to cook with.
Here are the ingredients for my recipe:
4 middle sized zucchinis - cut into cubes, 1 middle sized red capsium - sliced, 1 big carrot - sliced, 2 celery stalks - cut into small chunks, 1/2 middle sized onion - chopped, 1 big or 2 small clove of garlic - chopped, 2 tbsp dry oregano, 5 fresh oregano stalks - rough chopped, 1 veggie stock cube from Massels, 3/4 bottle of organic passata tomato, juice of half a lemon, 1 small knife tip of baking soda, 1/2 tsp coconut or raw sugar, olive oil for frying, seasalt and chili powder for seasoning --- to make the tofu cubes: 3/4 cup of cubed firm tofu marinated with 1/2 tsp smoked paprika, 1/2 tsp dutch cinnamon and some seasalt. 1 small bunch of fresh parsley to finish the dish.