I’ve been running a little busy lately, which is why you haven’t heard me chatter on as long as I usually do in my posts. Maybe some of you are even relieved :)Anyway, I quickly wanted to post this very simple weeknight recipe for a very nutritious and delicious lentil curry. It’s made with French Puy Lentils, which I love, not least because they cook up easily and have a great, peppery taste.I used mustard to spice up these lentils. While mustard is used often enough in Indian cooking, I used it a little differently here than I usually do: I ground it up before adding it. Mustard adds a spicy, almost slightly sour punch to the curry, and I couldn’t have been happier.The addition of spinach makes this curry even healthier. Feel free to substitute other greens, including watercress.So here’s the recipe. Enjoy, everyone, and me and my prattle will be back soon, rest assured!
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More recipes to try:
Creamy Canary Beans Curry
Spinach Kootu
Usal (Sprouted Beans Curry)
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French Lentils Spiked with Mustard recipe:
French Lentils Spiked with Mustard
Servings: 6
Ingredients
- 1 cup French Puy Lentils (can substitute with whole green lentils or Masoor)
- 1 12- oz package of frozen spinach , preferably thawed
- 1 onion , thinly sliced
- 4-5 cloves of garlic , thinly sliced
- 1 large tomato , diced
- 2 tsp black mustard seeds , ground into a powder in a food processor of coffee grinder
- 1 tbsp canola or other vegetable oil
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 tsp red chilli powder
- 1/2 tsp turmeric (optional)
Instructions
- Cover the lentils with water, bring to a boil, cover with a lid and simmer until the lentils are tender, about 1 hour. I do this in a pressure cooker, but you can do this on the stove-top or in the microwave.
- Heat the oil in a saucepan.
- Add the cumin seeds and, when they sputter, add the sliced onions.
- Saute the onions until translucent, then add the garlic. Stir-fry for another minute.
- Add the spinach and saute for another 3-4 minutes. You want the spinach to have completely thawed before adding the remaining ingredients.
- Add tomatoes, chilli powder, turmeric and mustard-seed powder. Stir together for about a minute.
- Add the lentils-spinach mixture and stir in.
- Add salt to taste. Bring the curry to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for five minutes.
- Serve hot with rice or chapatis.
(C) All recipes and photographs copyright of Holy Cow! Vegan Recipes.
Wonderful soup with a medley of great flavours.
You are a blessing! It is so great to have vegan versions of such excellent food! I made this recipe today (AWESOME!) and will be making many more of your dishes (carrot halwa is next!) in the very near future.
You are a blessing. I have always loved Indian food, but been in a dilemma as I’m trying to take the next step from vegetarian to vegan…I’ve tried several times without success, unfortunately. Just made this recipe (AWESOME) and will be making many more (especially the carrot halwa!!) very soon!
Made this last night and it was super delicious. Even my two young boys cleaned their bowls. It certainly pays off to introduce kids to different ethnic cuisine. We served it with basmati and green chutney. Thanks for the great recipe! So glad to have stumbled upon your blog.
Anonymous, this is a very basic fact — you need to add water to any lentil dish if it starts getting dry. It is impossible for me to give estimates of the amount of water to be used in a dish like this because people use different methods to cook their lentils– I usually use a pressure cooker but people sometimes use microwaves or cook on the stovetop and that requires different quantities of water to tenderize the lentil. In future, just add water if something is dry.
I made this dish today and it didn’t come out looking anything like the picture, it was very dry. Did I leave out a liquid somewhere, should I cook the spinach and lentils with more liquid and add that to the sauce pan?