Ingredients
2 Tbsp sesame or grapeseed oil
1 small onion/150 g, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
6 garlic cloves, grated or thinly sliced
1 cup/224 g chopped kimchi, chopped
1 tsp dashi or hondashi
1 cup/200 g cooked black lentils
4 cups/960 ml water
2 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and halved lengthwise (leave if making vegan)
2 scallions, trimmed, both white and green parts thinly sliced
Instructions
- Heat the oil over medium heat in a medium Dutch oven or saucepan.
- Add and sauté the onions until they turn translucent, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in the kimchi with its juices, hondashi, lentils, and water. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce to a simmer. Taste and season with salt; you shouldn’t need to. Remove from the heat.
- Serve hot or warm; garnish each bowl with half a boiled egg and the scallions.
Notes
- Use good quality kimchi you love; I like Mother In Law’s. When you pull the kimchi out of the jar, use the juices from the jar too. Besides the spices and flavors, the lactic acid in the kimchi will help add sourness to your soup.
- How to cook black lentils: Lentils usually double in size after cooking, so cook ½ cup dried lentils in 3 cups water and 1 tsp fine sea salt. Bring it to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer over low heat until the lentils turn tender, about 20 to 30 minutes. Drain and discard the liquid and use the lentils in the soup. I prefer black lentils here because they hold their texture, and red and green fall apart.
- Hondashi is a good staple to keep in the pantry. It’s a concentrated stock powder with all the umami in powder form. It’s made from bonito (in case you’re wondering, it doesn’t smell or taste fishy and has a very robust umami flavor that I absolutely adore) and other ingredients that intensify the umami experience. Dashi stock is also a great alternative – use 4 cups /960ml of dashi stock and skip the water in the instructions. A vegetarian alternative is dashi made from kombu (dried kelp) and dried shiitake mushrooms. Red miso paste is another good vegetarian alternative; add 1 Tbsp in place of dashi.
- You can skip the hardboiled eggs (to make it vegan) or double the quantity in the recipe. I prefer half an egg per person, but you can also count a whole egg per person.
