Spiced lentils with cucumber yogurt, take 2
Posted: November 21, 2013 Filed under: Pulses and lentils, Vegetarian | Tags: Cucumber, Lentils, Spices, Winter, Yoghurt, Yotam Ottolenghi Leave a comment
It was one of the first posts of this blog, long long time ago. Since then, an awful lot has happened: people have walked in and out of my life, some doors have shut and others have opened and Summer might have taken its time to arrive, but it alway did… Yet, for whatever reason, I keep coming back to it, specially in the first days of Winter. Confort food doesn’t get much better than this… Seriously, it is quite easy to do. It requires minimum attention and preparation – just the odd bit of mixing suff here and there. Most of the ingredients are spices and the most sophisticated ones are actually optional.
Spiced lentils with cucumber yogurt (adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi’s column in The Guardian)
Ingredients
For the lentils
- 200g split red lentils
- 1 bunch fresh coriander
- 1 small onion, peeled
- 40g ginger, peeled
- 3 cloves garlic, peeled
- 1 mild green chilli
- half teaspoon of black mustard seeds
- 4 tablespoons of sunflower oil
- half teaspoon ground coriander
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- half teaspoon ground coriander
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- half teaspoon ground turmeric
- half teaspoon paprika
- 10 curry leaves
- 300g ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped
- 2 teaspoon caster sugar
- half teaspoon fenugreek (optional)
- 1 pinch asafoetida (optional)
- Salt
For the cucumber yogurt
- 150g Greek yogurt (I used regular lactose free yogurt)
- 75g finely diced cucumber
- half tablespoon of olive oil
- 70g unsalted butter
- lime juice
Method
Wash the lentils in plenty of water, drain and soak in 350ml of fresh water for 30 minutes. Cut the coriander bunch somewhere around its centre to get a leafy top half and a stem/root bottom half. Roughly chop the leaves. Put the stem half in the bowl of a food processor, add the onion, ginger, garlic and chilli – all roughly broken – and pulse a few times to chop up without turning into a paste.
Put the mustard seeds in a heavy-based pot and place over medium heat. When they begin to pop, add the onion mix and sunflower oil, stir and cook on low heat for 10 minutes. Add the spices and curry leaves, and continue cooking and stirring for five minutes longer. Now add the lentils and their soaking water, the tomatoes, sugar, fenugreek, asafoetida and a pinch of salt. Cover and simmer for about 30 minutes, until the lentils are fully cooked.
Before serving, whisk together the yogurt, cucumber, oil and some salt. Stir into the lentils the butter, lime juice and chopped coriander leaves, taste and season generously with salt. Divide into bowls, spoon yogurt on top and garnish with coriander.
Lucie Loves Food 