Soak 2.5 cups of red lentils for at least an hour. Do NOT substitute brown or green lentils as these require a different amount of time to soak. For the best price, do not buy the lentils from a supermarket. Buy them from a halal store where you can buy it in bulk.
Dice up one small onion and three cloves of garlic and saute in oil in a pot (preferably olive oil but regular cooking oil will do). The onions/garlic should be enough to comfortably cover the bottom of the cooking pot.
Put together in a bowl: 2 tbsp turmeric powder, 3 tbsp cumin, 3 tbsp salt, and 1/2 tbsp black pepper, Dump these spices in with the hot oil/onion for 20 seconds to bring out the flavor.
vegetables: I usually mince up a couple of stalks of celery and one small carrot to give the soup a little more body but this is optional. If you are using these, dump these in and then add enough water to submerge contents of the pot and allow for the eventual addition of the lentils which you should strain in a collend,. . colland/. . . . collein.. . . . spaghetti strainer
When water is at a rolling boil add the lentils and stir
After fifteen minutes (this is also optional), dice up a small potato and add to the pot in order to give the soup more body.
Cook at least 20 more minutes. When it's done it should be like soup. If it's not like soup you either didn't cook it long enough or you used too much water or not enough water. Oops.
When it's done, check for salinity. Add salt if needed.
Serve with lemons to squeeze juice into the soup. Actually I cook the soup with lemon salt which you can buy from the halal store under the name acid salt but fresh lemon is better.
If the balance of spices is not to your liking, adjust next time. I don't actually measure my spices in measuring spoons so I'm just approximating.
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