Afghan vegetable soup with red lentils, pita bread and yoghurt

This Afghan vegetable soup comes from the Marley Spoon food box. Together with eight refugees, the meal delivery service has added dishes from their countries of origin to the menu. All profits from the meals go to Über den Tellerrand.

Reza is from Afghanistan and also lived in Iran for a while, before the war forced him to flee to Europe. He now lives in an asylum seekers’ centre in Berlin. Reza learned to cook from his mother. Now that he is far away, he enjoys cooking the dishes that he and his family loved when they still lived in Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan, this dish is called Havij. It is a healthy and warming dish, perfect for winter. Reza: “When we lived in Herat, the third-largest city in Afghanistan, we ate this dish at least once a week in winter.

Prepare the vegetables
Preheat the fan oven to 180ºC. Peel the carrots and cut them into rough pieces of about 2 centimetres. Peel and roughly chop the garlic and onion.

Sauté the vegetables

Heat a large saucepan with 2 tablespoons of oil over medium heat. Sauté the garlic and onion for about 5 minutes, stirring continuously. Then add 1 litre of water, the chopped tomatoes and lentils, and season with curry powder, salt and pepper to taste. Leave everything to simmer gently for about 15–20 minutes.

Bake the bread

Meanwhile, sprinkle the bread with a little water and place it on a baking tray. Bake the bread according to the instructions on the packaging.

Chop the herbs

Next, wash and roughly chop the herbs.

Purée the soup
Once the vegetables and lentils are soft and cooked through, purée the soup with a hand blender. Then briefly purée half of the herbs into the soup. Season the soup with salt and pepper to taste.

Spoon some yoghurt and the remaining herbs into the soup. Serve with the bread.

Source: MarleySpoon.nl