Lentils with Pita Chips

OK, so it's not the kale salad, but you can make this to eat the day after you've overdosed on Welsh Rabbit for dinner. Well, the day after the day after, cause the leftover rabbit makes an unreal breakfast as well.

We've been eating a bunch of lentils lately - I had eaten nary a lentil in my life and all of sudden there were lentils everywhere. My dad made some great lentils for a Christmas side dish. There was a Good Eats episode about them (Alton Brown made cookies out of the red ones).

We tried the Red Lentil Soup from the Times. It was tasty, but the lentils kinda fell apart and the whole thing turned grainy and a little mushy. It was still good, but you know...

There's also a recipe on 101 Cookbooks that I'm dying to try as well.

I ended up with this - wasn't soupy enough to be a soup, wasn't really a salad. So it's just lentils, and that's really all it was. The lentils themselves were the small dark, greenish grey French lentils pictured above (also called Puy lentils). They stayed much firmer during cooking, but still made it to tender - they just reserve the right to pop a little bit when you bite into them.

It turned out a very simple and satisifying dish for a solo supper (the girls were over at Tina's parents and had dinner over there) and is great for that purpose.

Lentils With Curry Yogurt and Pita Chips

In a sauce pan, saute with a pinch of salt in olive oil until soft:
1 onion, diced small
1 carrot, diced small

Add:
1 cup dark green french lentils
1 clove garlic, crushed
a bay leaf

Fill with cold water to cover the lentils by about an inch. Bring to boil, lower to a simmer and cook for 20-30 minutes until lentils are soft, but haven't disintegrated. Drain them, pluck out the garlic, save the liquid.

Separate out the portion you want to eat and depending on how moist you want them, add olive oil and cooking liquid back into them.

The topping is just some thick yogurt with a tiny bit of dad's homemade curry powder blended in.

The pita chips were tossed in a little olive oil, some za'atar and thrown in the toaster oven to crisp up.

Za'atar, if you haven't encountered it, is a Middle Eastern blend of herbs & spices and the name of an herb itself. Reading about the blend, there is definitely some variety in its composition, like every Italian grandmother's red sauce. The herb itself sounds like something between thyme, oregano and marjoram and it smells wonderful, like all three. Our blend, labeled just "Jordanian Za'atar" has za'atar (smells very much like thyme), sumac and sesame seeds. Among other things, it tastes great on chicken and hiding in our spice drawer in its little ziplock bag, it looks like something maybe we shouldn't have.

Anyway, back to the lentils - Scoop and eat.

Comments

[Einar]

I agree on what you write about lentils. Very very good food. And certainly makes my student food budget go nicely together. I've made the green lentil soup from 101cookbooks several times and likes it very much. I usually make a bunch on Sunday and eat it with some white (or wholegrain) bread on the side. Then I disperses the rest of the soup through the rest of the week.

[andrew]

Yes - I love having the leftovers, and don't have any problem bringing them to work for lunch for a couple days in a row. I took some of the batch I cooked for this dish, added some vinagrette and ate that on toast the next day - that was super as well.

Thanks for reading!