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Lentil Soup (Brodo di Lenticchie)
3 tablespoons of dried lentils 1/2 tablespoon of butter 2 tablespoons of cream Meat stock Cover the lentils with water and boil until they are quite soft. Pass them through a colander or a sieve. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the lentils and cream, mixing well, then add a ladleful of the stock, and boil for a few minutes; then add the rest of the desired amount of stock, a ladleful at a time.
A purée soup built on stock rather than water, with quantities given per serving in the Italian style. Read the lentil measure as a starting point and scale it to the number of bowls you want.
- The quantities are per personThe quantities look like a single serving -- Three tablespoons of dried lentils would yield roughly a cup of soup once thinned with stock, which suggests the measures are meant to be multiplied by the number at table. On that reading, for four servings use about 3/4 cup dried lentils, 2 tablespoons butter, 1/2 cup cream and 4-5 cups stock.
- Sieving is the pointThe soup is meant to be smooth. A food mill or blender does the work of the sieve in seconds, but pass the purée through a strainer afterwards if you want the silky texture the original intends, since lentil skins survive most blenders.
- Lentils have not changed, but sizes varySmall brown or green lentils break down well; red lentils collapse fastest of all and need only 15-20 minutes. Large plate lentils hold their shape and resist puréeing. No soaking is required for any of them.
- "Meat stock" means brodoIn an Italian kitchen of this period that is a light broth of beef and/or chicken with carrot, onion and celery, not a dark reduced stock. A good unsalted chicken stock is the closest supermarket equivalent; season at the end, since the purée thickens and concentrates.
- Add the stock gradually and warmThe ladleful-at-a-time instruction is not fussiness. Beating hot stock into the buttered purée a little at a time keeps it from splitting into lumps, the same logic as loosening a roux.
- Do not hard-boil after the cream goes in"Boil for a few minutes" here means a bare simmer to marry the flavours. Sustained boiling with cream in the pan risks curdling, especially if the stock is acidic from tomato or wine.
- ConsistencyThe finished soup should coat a spoon lightly. If it thickens on standing, which it will, loosen it with more hot stock rather than water.
- ServingThe recipe leaves the finish open; croutons fried in butter or grated Parmesan at the table would both suit a sieved soup of this kind.
Lentils are among the oldest cultivated foods of the Mediterranean, and in Italy they carry a strong seasonal association with New Year's Eve, when a dish of them is eaten for prosperity, the small coin-shaped seeds standing in for money. This particular recipe belongs to a genre of minestre passate or sieved soups that could open an Italian dinner: a modest quantity of pulse, enriched with butter and cream and let down with broth until it became something refined enough to serve as a first course. Smooth, mild purées of this sort travelled across culinary borders more easily than the garlic-and-oil end of the Italian repertoire. If the measures are indeed meant per person, that convention suits a kitchen where the number at table was known before the pot went on.