This soup is a cheap filling meal that my family loves.
400g good quality sausages
250g green lentils
2 carrots
2 sticks of celery
1 large onion
1 large (or if you are like me 3) clove of garlic
60-100g small pasta such as orzo (but you could use macaroni)
1lt chicken stock
salt and pepper
Parmesan to serve
right year 10 The next recipe we’re going to look at is an Italian wedding soup um with lentils Apparently it’s not something you actually have at a wedding It’s um it just means that all the flavors go well together like a marriage It starts like so many soups do with a mixture of carrots celery and onion All of which need to be finely diced So I’m going to do that now I will obviously I’ll speed it up super fast so you don’t have to watch me in real time cuz that would be boring Let’s go Okay 10 I’m very sorry Um I had to turn that off because uh at that moment the doorbell went and my entire family to descended upon us So I’ve um finished chopping all the veg and um I’ve also boiled up the lentils Now this is way more lentils than I’m actually going to need but I’m going to make a lentil salad as well So washed the green lentils and then um simmer them for 25 minutes with a bay leaf and a little bit of couple of cloves of garlic in the water and some salt So simmer them for 25 minutes or you can just buy a can and then they come cooked But they’re much cheaper to buy them dried Like I say this is way more than I’m actually going to need but I’m going to make a little salad as well So they’re done and off to one side The other thing that I have done is that I have prepared the sausage meatballs Now this is one of the ways that my the way that I do this differs from the original recipe I think the first stage that you want to do is obviously you’re going to take your sausages take them out of their skins turn them into meatballs I think you want to brown them off first So in a pan with a little bit of oil not much just a little tiny bit we’re going to put our sausage meatballs And we’re just going to sear the outside just to add a bit of color That one’s got lentil on it Oh well All adds to the flavor now So we don’t want to over crowd the pan That’ll be fine But to show you how I did it and obviously don’t do this in your hand like this This is an idiotic thing to do but you take the knife You do it on a chopping board not into your hand And then you can take the skin off break it into chunks roll into meatballs Um these are just plain pork cuz that’s what to be honest that’s what in the co-op down the road But um I think you you probably want to go for a bit more flavor in your sausage You probably want to go for like a tuloo sausage or an Italian sausage of some description would be even better Obviously it’s an Italian soup Um something with a bit of garlic in something with a bit of onion in Nothing with like apple in That would be a bit weird And probably not anything with like the churitzo in because that again odd But bit of herbs few herbs bit of garlic would I think improve the situation dramatically Plain pork is absolutely fine and it does work really well but you want to go for something with quite a high meat percentage Have a look at the meat percentage on the sausages You want to be going for as high as possible You don’t want to be going for like one of those pasty ones like a you like a cheap you know or even like a Richmond sausages They’re they can be quite pasty You want to look for something that’s got a high meat content Yeah Get my favorite spatula out And then we’re just We’re not aiming to cook them through It’s just like doing the Moroco meatballs in year Year eight Just get a bit of oil moving around [Music] We’re just trying to sear the outside That’ll do Not looking for anything dramatic Just boiled sausage It’s not the aesthetic anyone’s looking for [Music] So that’s done They have See not much color on them Just a little bit of brown That’s all I’ll pick off any bits that are looking too brown I’ve actually washed my pan If you’ve just got a nice little bit of fond then don’t bother Um but I had some bits that were properly burnt on so you don’t want that To this and oh and I’ve let the pan cool down a bit So to this I’m now going to add the um onion garlic and celery Again with a little bit of oil And we want to gently cook this for 10 minutes So a really low heat for 10 minutes Decent pinch of salt lid on Stir it every now and again for 10 minutes We’re not aiming for any color We just want it to gently sweat down all the sugar to come to come out The onion should go nice and translucent The carrot should go slightly soft And it should it’s going to work as the base of the soup It’s the base of so many dishes in Italian French British Your basic mixture of carrot onion and celery Okay guys so it’s been 10 minutes As you can see this is all looking a lot softer It’s gone sort of little like jammy I guess we just take a moment to look at how finely I’ve diced this We do want consistent sizes cross dicing And if you can show that you can do fine dice and you can show that you can be consistent that is worth more marks in your in your exam Okay All comes under knife skills To this we’re going to add some garlic And this is one of the areas that I have differed from the recipe So if you’re going for like a garlicky sausage then add one clove of garlic If you and a very finely sliced I know it looks like big chunks but it’s very fine If you’ve got a plain sausage then go for slightly more So I’ve gone for one large clove too small and another If you’ve got a herby sausage then leave it at that But I don’t I’ve got very plain So I’m going to add a few fennel seeds at this point Not many just a tiny sprinkling fennel seeds which will give a slightly anacey flavor We’re going to cook that for about a minute All it needs We want to be careful not to burn the garlic to this now cuz we definitely don’t want it sticking onto the bottom We don’t want it picking up any color We’re going to add one liter of chicken stock Obviously homemade chicken stock would be better I’m just using stock pots You’re going to add your meatballs to this cuz of course they need to cook all the way through 60 to 100 g of a small pasta So I’ve gone for also And if you’re using tinned lentils I’d add those Now I’m not going to add my lentils quite yet because my lentils are very much cooked through and I don’t want them to be um what’s the word for overcooked I don’t want them to go all mushy So Let’s bring this up to a simmer Probably should have brought it to a simmer before I added the um pasta to be honest but boiling water out of the kettle to do the um stock anyway So there we go Right guys so this has now been bubbling away for about 6 minutes The pasta is just cooked Just basically take it from the instructions on your pasta However long your pasta is supposed to cook that’s how long you’re going to cook it for To this I’m going to add the lentils So this is 250 g of cooked lentils Like I said this isn’t it’s about half of what I actually cooked The other half’s over there which I’m going to turn into a lentil salad I love green lentils My mom used to cook green lentils all the time for us when I was a kid They’re really good with thyme and garlic And then I’ve got some baby spinach Now I hate the way that baby spinach goes in a soup So I’m going to take a pair of scissors and I’m going to chop it up in the bag So I’m just going to take this Can you see I want to end up with my hand in here Right I’m just going to chop the baby spinach up So I don’t want giant great leaves Doesn’t have to be spinach here But some green leafy veg about 100 150 g about half a bag leaves It’s not what I’m after See what I mean about the sausages You do want a bit of want to You see you don’t want to get a bit of color on them first cuz you know they’re a bit looking Taste it Salt and pepper Does not need salt Does need pepper You just need to double check the sausages are cooked And then that’s that Serve with some nice crusty bread and um a grated parmesan over the top It’s a really cheap healthy well balanced dinner You’ve got protein you’ve got carbs you’ve got your veggies It’s a nice fresh dark green leafy veg You’ve got loads of fiber It’s not going to set the world on fire but it is a good dinner A good cheap dinner All right guys Give it a go