Sunday Dinner

This one is just for fun. Delicious, legume-y fun.

I saw a tweet from @amysnotdeadyet, asking for recipes for lentil stew that did not include tomatoes. I emailed her the following two recipes, and a couple of hours later, she tweeted “I have spent the past 3 hours cooking, and now my house is warm & smells awesome. Plus, food for the week!”

Warms my heart, that does. Plus she told me she “made a bastardized version of your dal recipe (I didn’t have all the spices, so I went w/ curry mostly) & it’s delicious.”

So, first things first. The dal recipe in question comes not from me, but through me, from Crescent Dragonwagon, who is also on Twitter as @cdragonwagon. I own and adore her cookbook The Passionate Vegetarian — damn right that book cover is an affiliate link — even though I eat meat). She is so much more than a cookbook writer. Go and subscribe to her blog immediately.

Crescent Dragonwagon’s dal recipe

Serves 4-6 people as an entree, with cooked rice

5 to 6 cups water
2 cups lentils, rinsed
1 bay leaf
3 tablespoons butter
1 onion, chopped (you can substitute 3-4 cloves of garlic or go half-and-half onions & garlic if you prefer)
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
1 tablespoon black mustard seeds (not yellow)
1.5 teaspoons ground coriander
1.5 teaspoons ground turmeric
tiny pinch of ground cloves
cayenne pepper to taste

1. Bring the water, lentils & bay leaf to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook (covered) for about an hour, until the lentils are soft.
2. Near the end of the hour, melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and saute until softened, about 3 minutes. Add the ginger, garlic if using, and all of the spices. Lower the heat to low and cook, stirring constantly, for 2-3 minutes. (If you’re subbing garlic for the onion, just add everything at once to the butter and cook on low for 2-3 minutes.)
3. Scrape the spice mixture into the lentil pot, and cook until the lentils are very soft and melty. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve hot over cooked rice. This is even better reheated the next day.

Wendy’s lentil stew directions

And here’s how I’d make a tomato-less lentil stew with chicken or beef broth (depending on the heartiness level you want), not strictly based on a recipe, just on things I’ve cooked before, hence the less-than-precise measurings:

1. Cook lentils in water, chicken broth or beef broth (1 cup lentils to 4 cups liquid) for about 20 minutes. While you’re doing that:
2. Saute equal parts onion, celery, and carrot in a large saucepan in butter/olive oil for about 5 minutes.
3. Optional: You can totally add other veggies to this saute. I like mushrooms, zucchini, red peppers, even potatoes. Just depends on what you like.
4. Add generous sprinklings of herbs (my favorites are thyme, sage, oregano, basil) and a couple of cloves of minced garlic to the onion/celery/carrot pan, stir and cook for about 1 minute.
5. Pour the lentils and liquid into the vegetable pan. Stir well. Add additional broth if it’s too thick, plus an optional 1/2 cup of red wine for a flavor boost.
6. Optional: If you want super-hearty, you can add pieces of cooked chicken, the drippings from a roasted chicken, or even gravy — this is a great soup to make with Thanksgiving-type leftovers!!
7. Simmer for about 10 minutes. Test the lentils to make sure they’re not hard in the middle. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve piping hot, as-is or with cooked rice (wild rice makes it gour-may) or some kind of hearty crusty bread to sop up the last few drops in your bowl.

Further notes on tomato-less foods: Crescent Dragonwagon also has a recipe for “macro-red” pasta sauce, which has beets & butternut squash but no tomatoes. Macrobiotic cookbooks also have lots of recipes that avoid tomatoes (and peppers and eggplants and potatoes, all members of the same botanical family of nightshades). So if you too have a tomato allergy, there’s hope.

Happy lentil-ing!

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