This recipe uses a left-over lamb roast bone, ideally with a little bit of meat left in the nooks and crannies. Put this in a slow-cooker crock, cover with water and cook for at least 12 hours prior to making the soup.
To make the soup –
- dice an onion, two carrots, an eggplant, a few tomatoes, and the stems of a few silverbeet leaves. Finely chop a couple of cloves of garlic and slice the leaves of the silverbeet. (Most veg would be suitable for using in this soup, but avoid strong flavours like swede or turnip.)
- in a suitable soup pot, fry the onion, carrot, eggplant and silverbeet stems in plenty of olive oil with about a tbsp of cumin seeds (whole) and a cinnamon stick
- add the diced garlic, along with ground spices (2 tsp smoked paprika, 2 tsp ginger, 1 tsp turmeric, 1-2 tsp dried mint) and sweat them a little to cook out the rawness, then add the tomatoes and stir well, scraping the bottom to prevent burning, to combine
- strain the broth from the lamb bone into the pot to deglaze, stirring again to dislodge anything stuck to the bottom, then add a tin of brown lentils, plus the empty tin full of water
- pull the meat off the drained bone, shred or dice and add to the pot
- season well (as the stock has no salt, it will take up to about a tsp quite easily) and cook until the veg are tender