Sour lentil soup – the obligatory New Year meal from my kitchen

It’s the 1st of January, and as any other holiday, this day has its own special meals to be served this day. At Easter we eat eggs and ham, at Christmas we find the Fisherman’s soup on the festive table, and the New Year can’t start without some pork and lentils. So what else could I prepare today’s meal from than a good portion of lentils.

Everyone uses the lentils in some different way, probably most of us though prepare some kind of soup from it. Here’s my lentil soup recipe richly packed with different meat (only pork!).

Ingredients for 4 bigger portions:

• 200 g lentils (I always use a brown lentils for this soup)
• 3 middle sized onions
• 2 bigger cloves of garlic 
• 1 tps sweet paprika
• 2 bigger carrots
• 20 dkg of bacon
• 1/2 thread of hot sausage
• 1/2 thread of delicate sausage
• 2 pairs of frankfurters (no poultry please!)
• 4-5 bay leaves
• 2 tps oil or other grease 
• Salt and pepper based on taste
• 200 ml cooking cream
• 1 cup of sour cream

Preparation:

Soak the lentils for about 5-6 hours, but it can be even overnight.

Cut the bacon into little cubes, fry it on the heated grease. Once they’re turning golden, remove them and put them aside. Chop the onion into small pieces and braise over the grease. After the onion becomes soft, add the sweet paprika and simmer for a few minutes while stirring. Make sure to watch it carefully in order to avoid burning, because if the paprika gets burnt, the whole dish will be bitter.

Add the peeled and chopped carrots (circles), the garlic and the cut sausages. Mix the whole very well. Add the lentils and pour so much water over it that the water will cover the mixture (about a finger above the lentils). Add salt and pepper to taste. Cook for about 15-20 minutes and then add the sliced frankfurter and the bacon (that was put aside) to it.

Then comes the cooking cream and sour cream. In order to avoid lumps, mix the two in a separate bowl, then take 4-5 ladles of the soup and mix the whole very well. Pour the mass back into the soup, boil it once again and then cook for another 5 minutes.

Serve hot. Usually it’s eaten with bread, but I mostly love it with home-baked potato scones.