Lentil puree soup with bacon

Smoked bacon is cleaned of excess fat and cut into small cubes. Chopping meat and all vegetables, you can not care too much about the beautiful slicing, as the soup will be mashed with a blender. Therefore, we cut as convenient and more like it.

Onions and bell peppers are cleaned, washed, dried with a paper towel and cut into strips or small cubes. In a saucepan with a thick bottom, heat the vegetable oil, load the prepared vegetables and bacon into it. Stirring constantly, cook over very low heat until the vegetables become softer. In this case, the bow is more indicative - it should become almost transparent.

Peel the potatoes, wash them, cut them. Wash the lentils to a clean state, finely chop the garlic clove. Add the vegetables and lentils to the onion and pepper when they are almost ready, stir and fry for another minute.

Add broth to the vegetables. To reduce the time for cooking soup, the broth should be hot. You can pour freshly prepared or preheated. We send the bay leaf and thyme into a saucepan, add salt and ground black pepper, bring the mixture to a boil.

We reduce the fire almost to the minimum. The boiling intensity should be such that when the lid is closed, the soup does not escape to the stove. Cook until the lentils are ready (about 15-20 minutes). You can determine the readiness of lentils by looking at it or crushing one grain. It should be boiled in appearance and soft when crushed.

As soon as the soup is ready, we remove the bay leaf and thyme - they are not needed when grinding. The soup has already received the taste and aroma, and the small debris that will remain from the herbs after the blender is not needed for the finished dish. We puree the soup with an immersion blender, pour it on plates and serve it to the table hot. If desired, you can supplement the finished dish with crackers or fresh bread.

Bon appetit!