Lentil soup (Indian laal daal)

Copy/Pasting from my cooking blog ( http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/riz9007 )where I share authentic Indian/Pakistani/Arabic recipes. Most of the recipes are handed down to me by Late mother, my sister or my sister in law. Hope you enjoy it!

This recipe is shared by my sister who learned it from my mother. Unlike most of the curry/soup type recipes, this is a dish I donot recommend eating with rice. You can eat this like soup or eat with bread to make it an entree. Hope you enjoy it.

Ingredients:

1 cup red Lentils (These are tiny red colored split lentils, easily available in most stores)
1 medium onion
2 tbsp tomato paste
2-3 green chillies (depending on how hot you want it, you can easily skip it)
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp red chilli powder
1/2 tsp salt

Ingredients for Tadka (to put on top of the soup)

1 small onion
2 cloves of garlic
1/2 tsp cumin seed
1-2 whole red pepper (The one thats shaped round but any dry WHOLE red pepper will work, DO NOT use pepper flakes)
1-2 tbsp olive oil

Recipe:

Take the red lentil, add the onions, green chilli, turmeric powder, red chilli powder and cook it till the lentils are tender. This kind of lentil cooks faster compared to most, I'd say about 30 minutes. Once the lentils are cooked and tender, you can add salt and tomato puree and cook it for another 5 minues while stirring the soup. Your lentils are technically cooked but for more flavor, you need to add Tadka to it on top. Turn off the soups heat and in another pot (or small fry pan) prepare tadka

Tadka Recipe:
Heat the olive oil. When its hot, add the chopped onion and chopped garlic. The garlic and onions should be very very thinly sliced, the finer the better. Cook it till the onions and garlic is golden/red color then immediately add the cumin seed and the red pepper. Let the seed and pepper cook for about 15-30 seconds and then dump it all in the soup.

Your delicious soup is ready to be served, you can use some good bread to dip this into and enjoy

Estimated nutrition facts (just my own calculations. Not split by serving size):

For the entire recipe (using 3 tbsp oil)
Calories: 838
Fiber: 44 grams
Carbs: 112 g
protein: 34g