Lentil and chickpea soup

I like spicy food, what more if its spicy soup. I am completely in love with this soup. Textures and flavours enhances boring soups so, I would call this an interesting soup. I also incorporated some chili paste I taste in France this year called Harissa. It tasted somehow familiar,  I remembered it as cooked dried chilies and garlic paste. This is a must try soup.

Oven roasted Ingredients

4 large red tomatoes (top trimmed)

1 large red capsicum (halved and deseeded)

sea salt

olive oil

crushed black peppercorns

Ingredients to be blended and sauteed (Harissa)

10 dried chilis (cut, deseeded, soaked, drained)

5 cloves of garlic

olive oil

a pinch of salt

Ingredients

5 cloves garlic (minced)

1 large purple onion (minced)

2 sticks of celery (minced)

1 tin of 400gm stewed peeled tomatoes

1 Tbsp ground coriander

2 cups of vegetable stock

2 tins of 250gm lentils

2 tins of 250gm chickpeas

Garnish

1 small tub of Greek yogurt

crushed black peppercorns

chopped dill to garnish

Method

1. Place tomatoes and capsicums with the sliced side up, sprinkle with sea salt and olive oil into a preheated oven at 160 degrees celsius for 1 hour.
2. While the tomatoes and capsicum is roasting, cook the blended garlic and dried chilies in a little olive oil and season with some sea salt. Leave to cool.
3. Cool oven roasted ingredients then remove skin from the roasted tomatoes and capsicum.
4. In a large heavy-based stockpot, cook garlic, onion and celery for 5 minutes over medium heat and add stewed tomatoes, coriander and vegetable stock. Allow the soup to simmer for 20 minutes before adding  1 Tbsp of the cooked dried chili garlic (some call it homemade Harissa) and all the oven-roasted vegetables. Leave to cool for a while.
5. Using a stick blender, puree all the ingredients in the stockpot then add in the tinned lentils and chickpeas (including all the liquid). Simmer for another 10 minutes and season with sea salt.
6. Ladle into serving bowls and garnish with a dollop of greek yogurt, chopped dill and crushed black peppercorns