2 Meals in 1: Turkish Lentil Soup/Bake

Want a tasty, warming and healthy meal? This soup was given to me by a Turkish friend. It's always very tasty and filling when she makes it, but I found that the soup leftovers can be used to make a delicious hearty oven bake. Find out and see.

• Ready In: 50 mins
• Serves: 2-3

Ingredients

• Soup Ingredients

• 1  onion
• 2 -3  garlic cloves
• 2  teaspoons  chili flakes
• 2  tablespoons  oil
• 1  small carrot
• 1  medium potato
• 1  cup red lentil
• 2  tablespoons tomato paste
• 6  cups water
•  salt
•  pepper
• 1  lemon (optional)
•  parsley (optional)
•  yoghurt (optional)
•  potato
•  parmesan cheese
• 50  g butter

Directions

1. Finely dice the onion and crush the garlic.
2. Add oil to pan and then onion, fry until soft.
3. Add garlic and chili flakes and fry gently for a few minutes.
4. Add lentils to pan and coat with onion mixture.
5. Pour in the water and turn up heat.
6. Grate the carrot and potato into the soup base which is now coming to boil.
7. Add tomato paste.
8. Leave to simmer until lentils are soft.
9. Take the pan off the heat and sieve it, i just use a normal metal sieve and push the liquid through with a wooden spoon.
10. Pour the liquid back into the pan, season according to taste. add the lemon, parsley and yoghurt off the heat.
11. (Oven bake recipe).
12. Use what remains from the sieved soup. Wqueeze as much of the liquid out as possible.
13. Layer into a casserole dish.
14. Slice the potato into thin slices and layer onto the lentil soup mixture.
15. Grate the cheese on top of the potato.
16. Dot the top with the butter.
17. Place in a medium hot 180°C oven and bake until the potato is soft and the cheese is golden brown.