Red Lentils with Green Curry and Coconut

The most important lesson I learned from my 5-day microwave experience was that a lot of things can be cooked in a very straight-forward way: just place all ingredients in a recipient and cook until done! That's the case of this highly addictive green curry with red lentils. Of course, you can do it the traditional way: sauté the spices in a bit of oil and so on, but if one is in a hurry, why bother?

I got the idea for this curry from here, as I was looking for ideas to combine lentils, bulgur, and coconut. Serve the curry with cooked rice, topped with fresh cilantro - or flat-leaf parsley, if you don't happen to like the taste of cilantro (surprisingly many don't).

 

For 4 portions you need:

• 1 cup red lentils, rinsed


• 1/2 cup bulgur, rinsed


• 3 Tbsp green curry paste


• 2 Tbsp tomato paste


• 300ml coconut milk


• 150ml hot water


• 1 Tbsp olive oil


• 2-3 garlic cloves, crushed


• 1 tsp salt (or to taste)


• 1 tsp turmeric


• 1 tsp ground cumin


• 1 Tbsp chopped fresh ginger


• 30g fresh cilantro

It doesn't get easier than this: take a saucepan and place lentils, bulgur, coconut milk, and chopped ginger in it. In a large cup, stir together green curry paste, tomato paste, crushed garlic, water, oil, cumin, turmeric and salt. Add the spice mixture to the pan and bring everything to the boil. Let simmer over a low heat until the lentils are soft, or about 15 minutes. Add more water if needed.

Sprinkle chopped cilantro on top and serve immediately!

 

Day Six: Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie

On the sixth day of No Cost Food Week I had run out of milk and all-purpose flour. I don’t need any milk myself, but the kids do. And I don’t need all-purpose flour either - but my sourdough would die without it! So I decided to cheat a bit and buy these two things.

For lunch we had leftovers from Pasta 007. For dinner I didn’t have much choice anymore: I had lentils (brown, black, and red), a couple of carrots and onions, a bit of Savoy cabbage, one butternut squash, a bit of celeriac, potatoes, a bit of butter, frozen peas and spinach, a bit of cheese, and that’s about it.

I decided to cook a vegetarian shepherd’s pie. Normally I’d use a variety of veggies and mushrooms, but now I had no choice. I used half of the butternut squash, one onion, the rest of the cabbage, and red lentils. Surprisingly enough, this combination was much tastier than the one I normally do!

This is what you need for 4 portions:

• 1 onion


• ½ butternut squash (large-ish)


• 200g Savoy cabbage (even more if you’ve got :) )


• 100g red lentils


• 2-3 garlic cloves


• 2 Tbsp olive oil


• 800g potatoes


• 30g butter (optional)


• salt and pepper to taste

First, peel the potatoes and cut them into cubes. Boil them in salted water until tender, or about 15-20 minutes.

In the meantime, chop the onion, crush the garlic cloves, peel the squash and cut it into cubes, and wash and drain the lentils. Heat oil in a large pan. Sauté the onions until they are translucent , then add garlic and cabbage and sauté five more minutes. Then add squash, lentils, water, and salt and pepper, and let simmer over a low heat until the vegetables are tender.

Now return to the potatoes: leave enough water to mash the potatoes (or use milk instead: I didn’t have any to spare at this point..!). Add the butter (if using) and stir until it melts.

Place the veggies-lentil-mixture on the bottom of an oven pan (a Pyrex or a lasagne form is perfect). Top with mashed potatoes and cook in a preheated oven (200 C) until golden brown spots start to appear on the surface.

If I’d have to choose one dish so far from the ones I’ve cooked this week, this would probably be it! Oh wait, it would be the meat stew. But you get the point: it’s delicious!