Tasso Lentil Soup

There’s nothing like a good lentil soup to make a great light dinner. I used the cooking water from the chicken enchiladas last week as a broth for this soup. If you don’t have that cooking water, fear not! Use chicken stock and add red pepper flakes.

Ingredients
1 T butter
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 carrot, chopped
2-3 T tasso
1 lb brown lentils
1 t salt
chile/chicken stock
parsley
lemon juice

Directions
Saute onion and carrot until beginning to caramalize in a 4 quart dutch oven. Add the stock, tasso, lentils, carrot and salt. Add enough chile/chicken stock to cover the lentils by about 2 inches. Simmer until the lentils are tender. Taste, adjust seasonings.

Garnish with chopped parsley and squeeze lemon. No skipping the lemon, it really brightens the soup.

Notes
Tasso is a smoked pork seasoning meat used in S. Louisiana. If you don’t have access to tasso, use the most heavily smoked meat you can get your fingers on. Bacon is not heavily smoked, but can be used as a last resort. I would increase the amount used though.

If you never had tasso, you should try some ASAP. The best tasso (and smoked sausage and andouille) comes from Wayne Jacob’s Smokehouse. Shipping will make it a little expensive but definitely worth the splurge. For the record, they don’t know I exist or that they’re getting a shoutout.