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Orzo with Lentils soup

by:
January 24, 2010
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0 Ratings
Orzo with Lentils soup
  • Serves 6
Author Notes

This is a very simple and healthy Mediterranean recipe from Puglia and Southern Italy. The local cuisine is based on lots of legumes (which in the past were called the "meat" of the paesants). In Italy we traditionally eat lentils at midnight on New Year's Eve. Because lentils resembled coins, in the past they were thought to bring financial prosperity in the year to come. Nowadays, we associate them to general good luck, in any field! —puglia4foodies

What You'll Need
Ingredients
  • 1 pound lentils
  • 1 pound orzo
  • 2 carrots
  • Bunch parsley
  • 2 tablespoons intense extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • 1/2 chilly pepper
Directions
  1. Soak the lentils overnight and then rinse them.
  2. Put the lentils in a pan with orzo and cover with water. Add the sliced carrots and cook at low flame for 1 and half hour, while stirring and adding water if necessary.
  3. Add sea salt and chilly pepper. When ready switch them off and add parsley. Let them cool down so that the orzo absorbs all the sauce.
  4. Add the extra virgin olive oil, which is the key ingredients for the success of this recipe. It must be intense fruity and bitter.
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3 Reviews

Alexander
Alexander October 20, 2018
I believe this recipe is for *barley* and lentils — orzo means barley in Italian — not the barley-shaped pasta called orzo in English! The photo looks like barley, and it explains the cooking time.
 
GoodFoodie
GoodFoodie January 24, 2010
I can't imagine cooking orzo for 1 and half hours. Is that supposed to say a 1/2 hour?
 
puglia4foodies
puglia4foodies January 25, 2010
No it is 1 and 1/2 hour. I don't soak Orzo in water, I use it completely raw.
Orzo and lentils are cooked together, at VERY low flame. The slow cooking is the key in giving taste to dishes in Southern Italian cuisine.