Being Indian, Bengali specially, I have this love affair with lentils. Back home we call it 'masur dal'. Anyway was quite surprised when one of my Spanish friends suggested this recipe, which seems to be a very popular dish both in Spain and Latin America. If you are interested you could check out this one with ham or this one with chorizo. Anyway, my version is a simpler one- love cooking but hate spending hours cooking. This one's with bacon, but tastes as great if you want to skip the bacon and just make a vegetarian version.
Ingredients (Serves 2):
Heat the oil in a deep saucepan. Add onions, carrots, zucchini and fry on low heat.
Wash the lentils, add into saucepan. Add water to cover the lentils and just a finger more. If you want, you could add a little turmeric like I did, but its not necessarily.
Turn down stove to medium-low. Cook for twenty mins. Now add in chopped bacon, tomato pulp and the bay leaves. Cook for 10 mins and your lentils are ready.
Tips :
Ingredients (Serves 2):
- Lentils- 1 cup
- Carrots- 2 finely chopped
- Zucchini- 1 finely chopped
- Leek- 1 chopped (my recipe omits it as leeks are right now pretty expensive in Muscat)
- Onion- 1 large finely chopped
- Tomato- 1/2 pureed
- Bacon- 3 slices
- Bay leaves (laurel)- 4
- Turmeric- 1/4 tsp; this is totally optional, but as I was adding bacon without frying just put it in to be safe
- Olive oil- 1 tbsp
- Salt- To taste
Heat the oil in a deep saucepan. Add onions, carrots, zucchini and fry on low heat. Wash the lentils, add into saucepan. Add water to cover the lentils and just a finger more. If you want, you could add a little turmeric like I did, but its not necessarily.
Turn down stove to medium-low. Cook for twenty mins. Now add in chopped bacon, tomato pulp and the bay leaves. Cook for 10 mins and your lentils are ready.Tips :
- You could pair this with a small portion of rice, but the lentils by themselves are a complete meal.
