Thick lentil soup with chicory dumplings
Don’t indulge in making this recipe if you don’t have at least an hour. It does not belong to those fast and fine, but slow and fine! Legumes, cereals and vegetables, as experts would say - a complete meal!
Preparation steps
- In a larger pot, place the washed lentils, carrots and celery cut into larger pieces, peeled garlic, a tablespoon of olive oil and a bay leaf. Add cold water to cover the lentils and vegetables for at least two fingers.
- Put to boil. When it boils, reduce the heat and cover, and cook for 40 minutes or until the lentils are soft. Ten minutes before the end, add salt and pepper.
- Meanwhile, cut the bread into smaller pieces and cover with milk to soften.
- In another pot, cook the cleaned chicory in a little salted water (approx. 10 minutes).
- Strain the cooked chicory and chop with a knife.
- In the drained bread, which you have slightly crushed with a fork, add chopped chicory, eggs, a pinch of salt, parmesan and nutmeg (optional). Mix well, add flour if it is too soft and leave it to stand for ten minutes.
- From the mixture of bread and chicory, form dumplings with wet hands and slowly lower into salted boiling water. Try one, if it crumbles add more flour. Cook them for fifteen minutes, then remove with a strainer.
- When the lentil soup has cooled a bit, strain it, toss the bay leaf and celery, and save the liquid.
- Chop the lentils and carrots with a hand mixer and add the liquid to make it thick as desired.
- Serve a thick soup in which you put dumplings and a little olive oil.
Serving
From this accommodation you will get 12 to 15 dumplings (depending on size). Due to the complexity of the recipe, you can cook the soup a day earlier, and the dumplings an hour or two before serving.
