Home › Vegetables › Curried Lentils
Curried Lentils
Soak a half pint of red lentils in water for three or four hours. Drain off the water. Put in a saucepan 1 ounce of butter and 1 onion sliced thin; cook until a nice brown; add the lentils and 1 pint of boiling water, and simmer one hour; then add the juice of 1/2 a lemon, 1 dessertspoonful of curry powder, salt, and pepper, cook ten minutes longer, and serve with boiled rice.
A straightforward split-lentil curry that needs only unit conversion and a note about cooking time.
- Half pint of lentilsMeasured by volume, roughly 1 cup (about 7 oz / 200 g) of dry lentils. With 1 pint (2 cups) of water this gives a soft, thick dish for two to three people over rice.
- Red lentilsThese are split, hulled lentils, sold today as masoor dal or simply red split lentils. They need no soaking at all and collapse into a puree; the three or four hours here may simply reflect the usual handling of whole pulses.
- Simmer one hour is too longSplit red lentils are tender in 15 to 20 minutes and will be a thin mush after an hour. Cook until they break down and hold their shape as a loose puree, then proceed with the lemon and curry powder.
- DessertspoonfulBetween a teaspoon and a tablespoon, about 2 teaspoons. Two teaspoons of a modern commercial curry powder is mild for this quantity; taste and add more.
- Cook the curry powderAdding the powder at the end leaves it raw-tasting. Stir it into the browned butter and onion for a minute before the lentils go in, and keep the lemon juice for the last few minutes as written.
- Water levelA pint may not be enough once evaporation is accounted for. Keep a kettle of hot water at hand and loosen the pot as it thickens rather than letting it catch on the bottom.
- ServingServes two to three with rice as a main dish, or four as a side. Salt generously; lentils absorb a great deal.