Shorbat Adas (Beirut's Lemon Lentil Soup, Blended Silky)

📷 · File:Red lentil & preserved lemon soup.jpg, CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Soup · Lebanon · Beirut

Shorbat Adas (Beirut's Lemon Lentil Soup, Blended Silky) 🍲

Name: Shorbat Adas (Beirut's Lemon Lentil Soup, Blended Silky)
Prep time: 16 min
Cook time: 24 min
Total time: 40 min
Yield: 2-4 servings
Cuisine: Lebanese
Ingredients: 200 g red split lentils, rinsed until the water runs clear; 1 onion chopped, 1 carrot diced, 1 small potato diced (the body); 1.2 L water or chicken stock; 1 tsp ground cumin, 1/2 tsp turmeric, salt, white pepper; Juice of 1–2 lemons, to sharpen; To finish: good olive oil, croutons or toasted Arabic-bread cubes, dried mint rubbed between the palms; Optional drizzle: crushed garlic, lemon, dried mint and oil whisked together

The soup Beirut eats when the first rain hits the corniche: red lentils simmered until they forget they were ever legumes, blended into a golden silk sharpened with lemon and warmed with cumin, served with a river of olive oil and toast cubes floating like rafts. It is the cheapest bowl in any Lebanese kitchen — lentils, onion, carrot, pantry spices — and arguably the most requested, the lunch that breaks a fast, the comfort food every taxi driver will recommend before any restaurant. In Lebanon, shorbat adas needs no adjective: there is only this one.

Beirut Governorate Lebanese ⏱ 40 min Easy

Method

1

Sweat the onion, carrot and potato in a spoon of oil with the cumin and turmeric for 4 minutes — bloom the spices in fat, not water.
2

Add the rinsed lentils and the stock. Boil, then lower to a bare simmer for 20–25 minutes until the lentils collapse entirely and the carrot turns translucent.
3

Blend smooth with an immersion blender — in Beirut many cook it to silk without blending at all; either way it should coat a spoon and lighten as it settles. Season with salt and white pepper.
4

Take it off the heat before the lemon goes in, and taste twice: the soup should come out sour-first, then nutty. More lemon than feels safe is correct.
5

Serve scalding in bowls, a thick circle of olive oil on top, croutons scattered, dried mint rubbed over the surface as it steams. Squeeze of lemon at the table, and bread for the last swirl.

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Shorbat Adas (Beirut's Lemon Lentil Soup, Blended Silky) 🍲

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