Ingredients
- 8 cups water
- 1 ¼ cups dry lentils
- 3 celery stalks, peeled and sliced
- 4 carrots, peeled and sliced
- 1 large onions, peeled and sliced
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoons black pepper
- 4 bouillon cubes
Dumplings
- 1 eggs
- 1 ½ cups flour
- ½ teaspoons salt
- ½ teaspoons sugar
- ½ cups milk
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
Directions
Begin by making the soup. Rinse the lentils under running water. Then place them in a large pot and cover them with 2-quarts of water. Bring the mixture to a boil and allow it to simmer over medium heat for about 20 minutes. The lentils will be almost tender. Add the vegetables, boulion, garlic and black pepper. Stir gently and allow the mixture to simmer for 20 minutes more. The vegetables and lentils will both be tender. Taste and add salt if you think it needs it.
Now look over the amount of liquid in the pot. Add enough extra water so that all of the solids are well covered with liquid. Bring the mixture to a slow lazy simmer, not a boil. If the soup boils it will disintegrate the dumplings instead of cooking them.
While the soup is simmering, prepare your dumplings and set them aside. When the soup is simmering slowly, it is time to drop in the dumplings. Take a small rounded scoops of the dough with teaspoon and drop them into the simmering broth, on top of the vegetables. Keep dropping the dough blobs until you have scraped the bowl clean. Now put the lid, or a handy pizza pan over the pot and let it simmer for 20 minutes. Do not peek. Let the dumplings simmer covered for the full 20 minutes. The thing about dumplings is that they cook partly from the boiling soup and partly from the steam. The steam is what makes them fluffy, and the simmering broth is what cooks them all the way through. When the time is up, serve the soup and dumplings as soon as possible. The soup will be thickened and the dumplings will be fluffy.
Instapot Notes
Cooking the lentils for 7 minutes and then venting was too much. They were already done. Maybe 3 minutes at pressure?
Dumplings
In a large bowl combine oil, egg and milk until they are well blended. Add the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Mix it up to a stiff batter, like for drop biscuits.