Tag: lentils
Brown Lentils with Tomatoes & Onions
- 1 cup brown lentils
- 3 cups chicken broth
- 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
- ½ cup crushed tomatoes
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 inch ginger, grated
- 1 tablespoon extra light olive oil
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon turmeric
- ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1 teaspoon garam masala
Add the lentils into a medium bowl. Add the chicken broth, onion, tomatoes, garlic, ginger, oil, salt, turmeric and cayenne pepper. Bring to a boil and simmer on medium low heat for 30 to 45 minutes – or till the lentils are soft and the consistency is between a soup and a stew. Add the garam masala. Check for seasonings and serve with rice.
Lentils with Baby Spinach
Here is another vegetarian dish. This could be almost a one pot meal. All you need is some brown rice or quinoa.. well, those are the healthy options. One could also serve this with a rice pulao with lots of cumin and sautéed onions. Either way, this is a delicious dish that is very simple to make and very nutritious.
I love combining the orange and the yellow variety- the names of the lentils are below (actually I am not very good at remembering lentil names .. so I recognize them by color and shape). Anyway, I love combining the two and cooking them with a bit of garlic. I usually cook the lentils in water, but they can be made with chicken or vegetable broth.
Once the lentils are tender and cooked, I added baby spinach to the mix. I finished the dish with a tempering of cumin and mustard seeds.
It is one of my staples, especially when I don’t have a lot of time to cook…
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Moong Dal
Sometimes it is enough to eat something very simple and super easy to make. I make lentils when I run out of things to make for dinner. My usual go-to meal is a rice pulao with peas and some kind of dal.
This one in particular is especially my favorite. I love it because of it’s taste and also because it is easily accessible in any store (the lentils that is). I also love the way this particular one is cooked. My Mom has been making moong dal for years but she learnt how to make it this way from a friend.
I have been making this dal for years as well. Usually when I make lentils, I cook everything together and add sauteed cumin seeds at the end (most of the time). This one is different… I cook the lentils separately and a mixture of onions, cumin, tomatoes, etc, separately. Once the onion mixture is soft and cooked, I then add it to the cooking lentils and cook the whole thing. It is almost like a lentil stew and really delicious.
Serve with with some veggies on the side with rice or bread- it will become part of your repertoire….
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Moong Dal with Spinach (Lentils with Spinach)
This is a great dish to make through the week. It is simple and quick. Especially since I used these particular lentils- moong. They take all of 15 minutes to cook up. I have quite a few lentils in my pantry which is great when I don’t have anything else to cook.
I made these simply with some turmeric, salt and garlic. I let the lentils cook for a while and then added the frozen spinach- another thing I have on hand- it is extremely versatile and easy to use.
While the lentils were finishing up, I heated up some ghee (butter can be used instead) and added cumin. I added the mixture to the lentils and that was it. I served the lentils with some rice and it was a delicious weeknight meal. Everyone loved it.
Make these lentils through the week- they don’t take long at all.
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Lentils with Mint- Pudina Dal
To me there is nothing more comforting than a big bowl of well made dal (lentils). It is equivalent to Chicken Soup here- real comfort food.
In India the lentil variety is mind boggling. I am sure there are plenty of them I have never tasted. As part of my Indian pantry, I have at least 8 to 10 different kinds on hand at any given time. They are very reasonable to buy and great to make in a cinch. Some of the lentils have a tough exterior and need longer to cook- I have my trustee pressure cooker to do the job. A slow cooker works really well also- red kidney beans (rajma) and black lentils (whole urad dal) are ideal for slow over night cooking.
A well balanced Indian meal usually includes a vegetable- saag paneer or aloo gobi; a dal- masoor; a meat dish- keema or chicken. The dishes are served with homemade yogurt and freshly made rotis (bread) or rice. Obviously the dishes vary according to household and region but the staples remain the same- dal, roti and yogurt.
My parents are visiting from India- that means we will be getting fabulous Indian food. My Mom is a great cook- that is where I get my obsession of food.
While she was unpacking her suitcase, she brought out a big container wrapped carefully in plastic wrap and all sorts of plastic bags. Out came one of my favorite mutton dishes- achari gosht. The word achari means pickled and gosht is mutton. She used to make this dish whenever we would go for a picnic or on a long train ride. The meat is cooked in pickling spices, and mustard oil and finished with vinegar; plus it does not have any water- all of these factors help with a long shelf life. It is absolutely delicious- I know what you are thinking- why didn’t she just make it here?- well, the goat meat you get back home is far more superior than here and a lot tastier- I will post the recipe soon.
Anyway, my point was that we ate the mutton dish that very night. I decided to make dal as an accompaniment. I mixed the masoor dal (pink lentils) with moong dal (yellow lentils). I wanted to keep the dish simple since the mutton dish was the star of the evening. I added a few garlic cloves and cooked the lentils with salt and turmeric. I added fresh mint from my backyard. The mint gave the dal a really fresh and light flavor- it was amazing. The whole meal was delicious and very enjoyable- brought me back to my childhood. My daughter enjoyed it as well!
This dal is perfect with any dish or just by itself with a bowl of fluffy white rice.