one of our soups has escaped!

This is amazing, and was one of the top notes of my week in Union.

It's been a quiet week - in an unusual display of record-beating, Edinburgh was one of the warmest spots in the country this week, as the sun came out, the skies turned deep blue and peely-wally Scots gazed up at the unaccustomed bright object in the sky and removed layers of clothing accordingly. Anyone who wasn't blinded by the sunlight certainly needed sunglasses to cope with the glare from our poor sun-deprived skins.

And, while we have plans galore to gradually introduce Edinburgh to summer soups and lots more, these plans involve a gradual transition, and didn't cater for a suddenly tropical week visited upon us in March. So, it's been quite quiet, which has let us soupmongers do a lot of catch-up cooking and some experimenting - and be absolutely floored by a tweet from @laterisermusic we received on Friday. This pic is a Lebanese lentil, lemon and spinach soup, made by @laterisermusic, who was inspired by our seasonal special. I was incredibly moved by this, and just couldn't get over it. How many cafes have I eaten in over the years, and been impressed enough by one of their dishes to recreate it? I've done this with restaurants, certainly, but never with a lunchtime cafe, and I was incredibly moved to see that our soup had been good enough to have been remembered, thought about, web-searched and recreated in another kitchen. So, here's our own recipe for anyone else who fancies bringing another tear to this soupmonger's eye:

Union of Genius Lebanese lentil, lemon and spinach soup:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, fine-chopped
3 garlic cloves, crushed
2 handfuls of rinsed brown lentils
3 peeled potatoes, fine-chopped
2 litres water
Vegan stock
2 large handfuls of fresh spinach, coarsely shredded OR 8 buttons of frozen spinach
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt (only if required)
Pepper
1 heaped tsp za'atar


Saute onion, garlic and potato in the olive oil. Add the water and when boiling, add the lentils. Simmer for 40 mins. Take off the heat, add the vegan stock and stir the soup thoroughly. This is to slightly break up the potatoes and make them thicken the broth a little. Add the spinach, lemon juice, pepper and za'atar. Leave to sit for about 2 hours for the flavours to mellow - as with any lentil soup, the flavours develop when left alone for a while. Before serving, reheat the soup and taste. Add more lemon, pepper, za'atar to taste, and add salt only if required. The soup should be chunky with potatoes, and the broth studded with lentils. The flavour should be well-rounded and citrussy from the lemon and za'atar, with nutty base notes from the lentils. 


The other high point of this week was our forthcoming collaboration with Brew Lab. More on that another time...