Name: Roasted Eggplant and Lentil Soup with Cumin, Lime, Mint, and Basil
Yield: Serves 4
Ingredients: 1 spig fresh thyme; 4 sprigs fresh mint; 4 cloves garlic, unpeeled, crushed; 2 teaspoons ground cumin; 1 pod ancho chili, stemmed, seeded, broken up in a food processorpod; 1 medium parsnip, peeled, cored, chopped; 4 cups chicken stock; ½ cup basil leaves; ½ cup heavy cream; 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice; 1 tablespoon red chili flakes; 12 Japanese eggplants, stems cut off; ½ cup olive oil; ½ cup lentils, washed, soaked for 1 hour

Preparation info

Serves
4

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Jeremiah Tower Cooks

By Jeremiah Tower

Published 2002

About

If lentils were not the first vegetable man ever ate, they certainly were an early favorite. In 1967, when William Heinemann and Harvard University Press reprinted Athenaeus: The Deipnosophists in seven volumes, I plowed through four, and on the inside cover I listed what got my attention: “grilled sturgeon belly, scotch broth, pickled turnip, fresh cheese salad, underground refrigerators, sweet chickpeas, lentil soup with parsnips.” Since I love both lentils and parsnips, I tried th