To write this very newsletter, I clicked into Andy Baraghani’s new chicken and red lentil soup with lemony yogurt and scanned the ingredient list first, as I always do. Oil, onions, garlic, lentils, check; boneless skinless chicken thighs, also check. I didn’t have parsley, dill or mint, but I did have cilantro and a bunch of kale threatening to wilt. (Andy’s recipe doesn’t call for kale, but he does mention it as an addition in the headnotes, the second thing I read.)
Then I looked at the snow plastering itself to my window, shivered a theatrical shiver and thought, “Yup, I could really use a golden, garlicky chicken soup right about now.”
That’s how I got to preparing this easy (and already five-star) soup only moments after I clocked it, an episode of impatient, gastronomic greed. It is truly simple to pull together — just a bit of slicing and lazy stirring before you toss everything but the herbs and lemoned yogurt into the pot and let the stove do its thing. “This soup is soothing and satisfying on its own,” Andy writes, “but feel free to add a few extras: hearty greens like kale or spinach to wilt, a soft-boiled egg, or even chile oil for some heat.” Yes, yes and yes.
Featured Recipe
Chicken and Red Lentil Soup With Lemony Yogurt
Speaking of eggs, my colleague and cooking wizard Genevieve Ko has assembled a guide to egg substitutions, given that egg prices are (still) up. There’s no perfect swap for them, she says, but there are ways to get pretty close to the real thing — or, at least, to end up with a dish that’s delicious in its own right.
To wit: Ali Slagle’s tofu scramble is a solid stand-in for scrambled eggs and would be excellent tucked into quesadillas, heaped next to breakfast potatoes or — my move — piled on hot rice and smothered in chile crisp.
Genevieve also mentions using mashed potato as a substitute in recipes where the eggs act as a binder for the other ingredients, so I asked Melissa Clark how much mash you’d need for her meatballs with any meat. She said ⅓ cup should do it, and I say a vat of marinara is just the thing to go with those meatballs.
And since you’re probably making mashed potatoes anyway to go with your meatloaf, you could mix in about ¾ cup mashed potatoes for the called-for three eggs. This tip comes from our senior staff editor Adina Steiman. Thanks, Adina!
Lastly, don’t dump the liquid from that can of chickpeas! That liquid is called aquafaba, and it can be used instead of egg whites to make these almond-scented meringues. And with those meringues you can make Samantha Seneviratne’s Eton mess, which one reader made with frozen raspberries to “fabulous” results.
