Tag: Lentils

lentil salad with Indian spices

carrots lentils salads legumes indian

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I tried a few different side dishes with the stuffed red peppers before I landed on this subtle lentil recipe, and I think I finally got it right! It’s not too spicy, so you can really taste the stuffed peppers, but they have just enough interesting spices and vegetable colors (pink and orange!) to make them a perfect accompaniment. Of course, you can serve this salad with other things, as well; it’s wonderful with the spicy roasted cauliflower with red peppers and cumin, for example!  Or you can serve it with a dollop of chutney or a dish of salted, garlicky yogurt and a piece of pita bread.

This recipe is a variation of a salad in Annie Somerville’s Fields of Greens. If you make this salad ahead of time (which is always a good idea with legumes—the flavors deepen and meld together), don’t add the cilantro until just before serving. You’ll need to bring it to room temperature, and then taste the salad again before serving. It will likely need more white wine vinegar and salt before serving—the lentils will soak up the seasonings as they sit, and will need more sparkle. Oh—and if you don’t have the cilantro, that’s OK—make the salad anyway!

1 ½ cups French green lentils
1 bay leaf
3 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed or minced
1 medium red onion, diced
white wine vinegar
4 large carrots, peeled and diced
zest and juice from a lemon
1 ½ teaspoons cumin seed, toasted and ground
¼ teaspoon ground coriander
1 ½ teaspoons sea salt or kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon cayenne
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
¼ cup coarsely chopped cilantro

1. Rinse the lentils and place them in a medium-sized saucepan; cover generously with cold water and add the bay leaf and garlic. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer until tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Make sure not to undercook them (you should be able to squish them between your tongue and the roof of your mouth) but don’t let them turn into mush.
2. Meanwhile, bring another pot of water to a boil. Drop the diced onion in for about 30 seconds, then scoop out with a strainer and toss the onions with a generous splash of white wine vinegar. Add a little salt to the water and drop the carrots in for 4 or 5 minutes, until they are just tender-crisp, then drain and toss in with the onions.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together the lemon juice, zest, 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar, spices, salt, cayenne, and black pepper.
4. Drain the lentils when tender; remove the bay leaf and immediately toss them into a large bowl with the vegetables and the dressing mixture. The lemon flavor will be strong at first, but the lentils will absorb it. Add more salt and vinegar to taste—make sure the flavors are nice and sparkling! Toss in the cilantro just before serving.

red lentil pate

lentils toast toppings pine nuts indian food

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This recipe is a variation on one in Peter Berley’s The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen. I love it with slices of the Alaskan cucumbers we can get at the farmers’ market, but it’s great as a toast topping, as well! Serve it as an appetizer, or as part of a dinner. I love it with a side of cucumbers to dip into it, along side a big platter of the spicy roasted cauliflower with red peppers and cumin. Add brown basmati rice if you like!

This recipe freezes magnificently, so I’ve given you the recipe to make quite a bit. Put what you’ll eat in a week in the refrigerator, and freeze the rest in containers for later! Yum!

2 cups red lentils, rinsed
2 bay leaves
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 onions, finely diced
sea salt or kosher salt
½ cup pine nuts
6 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground caraway seeds
1 teaspoon ground cumin
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
freshly squeezed juice of one lemon

1. Combine the lentils and 8 cups water and bring to a boil. Skim and discard any foam and add the bay leaves. Simmer for 20 minutes, or until the lentils are tender. Drain for 5 minutes or so in a sieve.
2. While the lentils simmer, sauté the onions and 1 teaspoon salt in the olive oil for 5 to 7 minutes, until onions are softened. Add the pine nuts and sauté until the onions are golden and the pine nuts begin to color. Stir in the garlic, tomato paste, coriander, caraway seeds, cumin, cayenne, and 1 more teaspoon of salt. Continue to sauté for 5 minutes. Stire in the lemon juice to deglaze the pan.
3. REMOVE THE BAY LEAVES from the drained lentils. (It’s very important to find the bay leaf and get rid of it at this stage. Bay leaves do not puree well—they just turn into hundreds of tiny sharp shards.)
4. In a food processor, combine the cooked lentils and the onion mixture and puree until smooth. Transfer to a serving bowl and serve immediately, or if you have time, chill in the refrigerator overnight and then bring to room temperature before serving.
5. Serve with cucumber slices, on pita bread, on toast, on celery sticks… whatever suits your mood or whatever happens to be hanging around in your refrigerator, needing to be eaten!

red lentil & cauliflower curry with golden raisins

cauliflower carrots lentils curry golden raisins red lentils

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This is a beautiful yellow dish that I adapted from a recipe out of Veganomicon, after getting a huge (six-pound) cauliflower at the farmers’ market the other day. Plus I just had a root canal today so I needed something soothing and soft, but also really delicious, to perk me up!  This is another one of those stealth cauliflower dishes—after a few bites, you realize it’s just getting yummier with every bite! 

The combination of the golden raisins and lime juice is what really sparkles this dish up—it’s like adding the ingredients of a chutney to the stew. Those sweet and tart flavors are really delicious with the nutty cauliflower. I used golden raisins to continue the golden color theme, but you could use regular raisins to have a speckledy contrast, if you’d rather! You can serve it with rice, if you want (try the brown basmati recipe) or just eat it straight, in giant bowls-full, like I did.

If you have a big pot, make a double batch of this—as with all bean and lentil soups, I’m sure it’s going to be even better tomorrow! I usually have fresh ginger hanging around, but can’t always count on having a fresh jalepeno pepper—so those canned green chiles from the Mexican section of the grocery store work great in a pinch!

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large or 2 medium onions, chopped
sea salt or kosher salt
3 large carrots, peeled if the skins are tough, and sliced thinly (I used the cream-colored carrots from the market just to continue the gold/yellow theme)
1-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 large jalepeno pepper, halved, seeded with a spoon, and diced, OR 1 small can diced green chiles
2 teaspoons curry powder
½ teaspoon turmeric
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon ground coriander
½ teaspoon whole cumin seeds, toasted until fragrant in a small skillet
1 ½ cups red lentils
4-6 cups water
1 ½ to 2 pounds cauliflower (a medium-sized head), trimmed and cut into small florets
½ cup golden raisins
2-3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice

1. Chop and measure out all the ingredients. (In other words, do your mise en place.)
2. In a large soup pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat.  Sauté the onions with 1/2 teaspoon salt until tender and translucent, about 5 minutes, and then add the carrots. Sauté for another 4 or 5 minutes until the onion is getting golden-brown.
3. Add the ginger and garlic and green chile, and sauté for a minute or so. Add the spices and stir-fry for 3o seconds or a minute, and before things start to burn, add 4 cups of water and the lentils.
4. Bring the mixture to a boil, give it a stir, and cover the pot and let it simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, until the lentils blow up. They will probably take up most of the water. Add more water at this point to your taste. I like it soupy, so I would add 2 more cups, but perhaps you’d prefer a thicker dish and wouldn’t add so much.
5. Add the cauliflower florets and the golden raisins, stirring to coat with the lentils. Cover and simmer until the cauliflower is tender. The soupier you’ve made the lentils, the quicker this will be. It will probably take from 10 to 15 minutes.
6. Remove the dish from the heat and stir in lime juice and plenty of salt to taste. Add the lime juice carefully—you don’t want to make the soup sour, but you want it to sparkle!

wine-braised lentils over toast with greens

carrots chard spinach lentils greens toast toppings red wine

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This might sound like an unusual combination, but it is fantastic. It’s based on a recipe from Vegetarian Suppers from Deborah Madison’s Kitchen. You can use the toasted seed or levain loaves from Rise & Shine Bakery for toast, but if you use the toasted walnut oil in the recipe, the toasted walnut bread is spectacular!

I like to use the little French green lentils (sometimes they are called lentile du puy). They stay more intact than the regular brown lentils, which is kind of important in this dish, since you’re putting them on toast, not just cooking them into a soup. It’s a completely different texture than the brown lentils you may be more familiar with.

This recipe makes more lentils than you’ll need for one meal, but they are so good you’ll be glad for the leftovers. They freeze really well, too—just freeze the lentils before adding the greens. As with all bean recipes, this tastes even better if you make it the day before, or in the morning, so the flavors have time to develop.

1 ½ cups small green lentils, rinsed
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup diced onion
1 cup diced carrot
1 cup diced celery
6 garlic cloves, crushed or minced
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2-3 cups dry red wine
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
sea salt and freshly-ground pepper
2 bunches of chard or spinach, washed and stemmed
1 tablespoon toasted walnut oil (I like Loriva brand), extra-virgin olive oil, or butter
-------------------------------------------------------
slices of sturdy whole-grain bread
1 clove garlic, peeled

1. Parboil the lentils for 5 minutes and drain.
2. Heat olive oil in a large, heavy soup pot. Add the diced vegetables and 1 teaspoon salt, and cook over medium-high heat for several minutes, until starting to brown. Add the crushed garlic, mash the tomato paste into the vegetables, then pour in the wine and stir in the mustard. Add 3 cups water, the drained lentils, and 1 more teaspoon salt. Simmer, covered, until the lentils are quite tender, 30 to 40 minutes. Season to taste with salt. Lentils can use quite a bit of salt, so don’t be afraid to keep tasting and adding salt until you’ve got the balance just right.
3. Wilt the spinach in a skillet in the water clinging to its leaves. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Just before serving, stir as many cooked greens as you’d like into the portion of lentils that you’ll be eating right away, and add the oil or butter.
4. Toast the bread until nice and crunchy, and rub it with the whole garlic clove. Put each piece of toast on a plate and spoon the lentils and greens over the toast.