Green Lentil Spinach Stew

I got the recipe here, but it’s from the Middle Eastern Vegetarian Cookbook by Salma Hage. If you leave out the labneh as I did, it is a one-pot vegan meal.

French Lentil Soup

This recipe uses red lentils, leeks and carrots. It comes from Short-Cut Vegetarian by Lorna Sass.

Spinach Legume Stew

I worked off of this recipe, but substituted frozen fenugreek leaf for half the spinach because I had it available and I’m very fond of fenugreek leaf.

What I enjoyed about this recipe was that it gave me the opportunity to use so many different varieties of legume.

Of course most of the colour didn’t survive the cooking. Still, even with the limitation that I choose small, quick-cooking legumes, I included 10 varieties.

I used (from left to right) shelled urid dal, chana dal, moth beans, mung beans, cow peas, horse gram, yellow split peas, green split peas, beluga lentils and red lentils.

 

Berbere Black Lentils

Here’s the recipe.

As a stew, this dish has a lot of flavor, but not a lot of variety of flavor. I simmered off the liquid and served it in a wrap along with lettuce and garlic sauce. (The garlic sauce was made from a handful of soaked cashews, a clove of garlic, salt, and parsley.) The combination was quite good.

Kollu Poriyal

After I had leftover lentils from the previous dish using horse gram, I decided to make this dish. The previous dish was Andhra style, and this is Tamil.

Ulava Chaaru

I saw horse gram for sale recently, so I wanted to try it since it is reportedly quite healthy. First, I made ulava chaaru. One part of the recipe didn’t appeal to me: “Strain the liquid and 1/2 cup of cooked dal. The remaining left over dal can be thrown away.”

So I looked for another recipe which would use the lentils. Interestingly, that recipe suggested saving the water for this recipe, so I clearly should have read them in the reverse order. I’ll post that recipe next.

This dish is typically served with butter, but the recipe itself is vegan, so it can be eaten plain or with a butter substitute if desired.

Pālakūra Pappu

I used this recipe, substituting the ridge gourd with spinach. In place of ghee I used a vegetable oil.

Masoor Dal with Tomato

I cook toor dal a lot more often than masoor (red lentils) but I’d get bored if I made the same dish every week, no matter how much I like it! Here’s a recipe for masoor dal. My dish differed because I added garam masala toward the end, and used oil instead of butter.

 

Methiche Varan

The last time I cooked fenugreek leaves with lentils, I followed a south Indian recipe. This time I used a Maharashtrian recipe, substituting oil for the ghee. I used frozen fenugreek leaves because I have such a hard time finding them fresh.

Dal Tadka with Pandan

This is a variation of Rick Stein’s recipe for lentils with coconut milk and pandan leaf. I used red (masoor) lentils.