This recipe is part of Asif’s Open Kitchen Project where cooks who were evacuated during the war are invited to a home in Tel Aviv to cook a dish that they miss from their own home. Would you like to participate in the project? Register here.
“The smell of this soup reminds me of home; it reminds me of my mother; it reminds me of many, many things,” Sigal Hayak excitedly tells her host Avichail Kallush, as she seasons the red lentil and barley soup that’s on the stove. Until that day, this Tel Aviv kitchen and apartment were foreign to her, but now she feels at home for a moment, cooking one of the dishes her children miss most. “You made my dream come true,” she adds. “Besides my bed, I miss the kitchen the most.”
Approximately two months ago, Sigal and her four children relocated from the Moshav Hosen in the north to a Tel Aviv hotel, while her partner remains part of a standby response unit in Acre, She moved to help support her son who is on the autism spectrum and struggles with anxiety.
When she learned about Asif’s Open Kitchen Project, which would offer her a chance to reclaim her kitchen and cook cherished meals, Sigal was overjoyed. “I gathered my four children and asked them, ‘What would you most like to eat?’ One said she wanted grandma’s soup, the second said she wanted her aunt’s Krembo cake, the third asked for a stir-fry, and Noam said, ‘Whatever you will make will be delicious,’” she recounts.
Sigal learned to make this recipe for red lentils and barley soup from her mother, who passed away last year. It’s beloved by all of her kids, but especially her daughter who used to eat it for breakfast every day before the war started.
3 tablespoons neutral cooking oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 cup (200 grams) red lentils, sorted
2 liters (8 ½ cups) chicken stock or water
½ teaspoon ground turmeric
¼ teaspoon black pepper (or more, to taste)
Salt, to taste
½ cup pearl barley, sorted
2-4 celery leaves, washed
4 cilantro sprigs, washed
- Heat the oil in a medium-sized pot over medium heat. Add the onion and fry until golden, about 7 minutes.
- Add the red lentils, mix well and fry for 3 minutes.
- Add the water and bring to a boil, adjust the flame to medium-low heat. Simmer for 10-15 minutes.
- Add the chicken bouillon powder, turmeric, black pepper, and salt, mix well. Simmer for 10 minutes more.
- Add the pearl barley, celery leaves and cilantro, reduce to a low heat and cook, uncovered or partially covered, for 25 minutes.
- Before serving, remove the celery and cilantro leaves because kids usually don’t like them (optional).
