Chicken and Lentil Soup

Makes enough for 4 good lunchtime portions

• 2 onions
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 stick of celery
• 1 carrot
• 200g red lentils (other colours may work just not puy)
• ½ tsp ground cumin
• ½ tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp paprika
• 950ml chicken stock
• 2 roasted chicken breasts (or similar amount of any left over roast chicken)
• juice of 1 lemon
• lemon wedges to serve
• salt to season

1. Dice the onion
2. Dice the celery
3. Finely chop the garlic
4. Grate the carrot
5. Rinse the lentils
6. In a nice big heavy pan, fry the onion, garlic, celery and carrot in a little olive oil for a good 10 minutes, allowing the onion to soften and the flavours to mix (consider it a soffritto or mille poix with garlic. A purist would cook the holy trinity of onion, carrot and celery first, then add the garlic later to prevent it burning. In practice, I've not found it makes a big difference if you have the garlic in from the start so long as you don't burn it..)
7. Stir in the spices and lentils
8. Add the stock
9. Stir and put the lid on the pan
10. Simmer gently for 30-45 minutes
11. Just before serving, add the lemon juice
12. Season to your taste
13. Chop the chicken into small crouton sized pieces
14. Serve the soup into bowls and add the chicken on top. If you're cooking 4 portions (or more!) but are serving them 2 at a time, adjust the amount of chicken accordingly. If you refrigerate or freeze some soup, I'd keep the chicken separate until serving

We typically make enough for 4 and have it as lunch twice. On the day its cooked, the lemon juice in the soup was perfect, on the second day (the soup having been frozen or refrigerated and re-heated, the lemon wedges squeezed in at serving time can add back any lost 'tang'