I have no idea why I wanted to cook lentils, however the first recipe from one of my friends at work, S.,. She also gave me the mustard seeds for the recipe which also included cumin seeds, tumeric, tomato paste, onions, garlic, red lentils, stock and chilli. That seemed like a pretty easy recipe as I had all of that at home barring the lentils and the mustard seeds.
Of course when I went to cook the lentils, I found that my cumin seeds had gone missing, courtesy of VGirl when she was making falafels. Then the tumeric was gone from when we last made banh xeo, Vietnamese tumeric savoury crepes. Well that was me well and truly fucked, I'd have bailed but I had already pre-soaked my lentils and had no idea what to do with it.
I decided to be courageous and wing it with a spice mix. I had to choose between a powder madras curry or my new berbere spice mix that I had picked up. I went with the berbere, the premade one I had didn't have the ingredients listed but Wikipedia helpfully tells me that it usually has at least chili, garlic, onion, ginger, dried basil, Ethiopian cardamom, rue, nigella, fenugreek as well as ajwain or radhuni. I have no idea what Ethiopian cardamom, ajwain or radhuni taste or smell like, so there was no way I was going to try and make berbere from scratch. From the smell of it, mine has paprika and nutmeg in it too. Feel free to make your own if you want.
I actually can't remember what brand of berbere I got, except that I got it from Pennisi Cuisine, a whole sale deli store in Woolloongabba and they don't even have it on their website. Its comes in a little rectangular packet though . . .
Anyway, I also decided to make some flatbread with it. I stole Julie Goodwin's recipe for it, when I made it though, I made about 20? small pieces rather than 8 large ones. Each flatbread piece only ended up being about the size of my hand, a good 20cm or so in diameter. I prefer my flatbread quite thin and crispy though, so that might why I had so many.
I was very proud of both the lentils and the flatbread and made lots of people eat it at work. H., adores it, and I kept making her a little box of lentils and lots of flatbread to scoop it up with. Di really enjoyed the flatbread too and asked for the recipe. While K., who was on a bad financial stretch also vowed to cook this, until I took pity on her and made her a batch of sausage rolls to stretch it out until pay day haha. Oh Gill and I also do a dinner swap and she owes me a bag of lentils to cook her a batch.
Julie Goodwin's Flatbread
Uses: Bribing H., to do work for you.
Ingredients:
4 cups of flour
1 teaspoon of salt, 1 tablespoon if you're a salt fiend like me
100g of butter
375ml of milk, I used soy cause I never have normal milk handy
Cooking oil
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| Soy sauce is not involved |
1. Heat the milk and butter together until the butter is just melted. I nuked mine in the microwave for about 30 seconds. Microwave strengths may change.
2. Sift the flour in a large mixing bowl with the salt and make a well in the centre. Gently mix until the dough comes together.
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| Like this |
3. You should have a soft stretchy dough that doesn't stick to the board. If it does, continue to add flour until it stops being a pain. Knead for about 5 minutes until soft and stretchy.
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| Squishy |
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| Squish squish squish |
5. Heat a large saucepan on a steady medium until hot, splash in some oil and begin step 5.
6. Pinch off a blob and roll out as thinly as possible, lifting off the the board several times and rerolling until you are satisified. Throw in the pan, and start rolling out another piece while the flat bread cooks. It takes about a minute or so.
7. Once the surface begins to bubble and the edges curl slightly, flip over and continue playing around with your flatbread.
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| Rustic is a nice word for imperfect cooking |
8. Continue frying flatbread until you have enough to eat for your meal.
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| So crunchy and buttery |
Uses: eating vegetarian for several days
Ingredients:
2 cups of uncooked red lentils
4 cups of water or stock
1 medium onion, finely diced
3-4 cloves of finely diced garlic
1 tablespoon of berbere spice
1 tablespoon of black mustard seeds
1/4 cup of water
400g can of diced tomatoes
1-2 tablespoons of tomato paste
Salt/pepper/sugar/chopped chilli to taste
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| Mmm lentils |
1. Soak your lentils for about 30 minutes before cooking, also fine to cook straight from dried lentil. This recipe is very flexible. If you do decide to not soak the lentils, use an extra cup of water when cooking to compensate for water absorption. Chop up all your garlic and onion.
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| Lentils in stock! |
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| Is it red yet? If so, done. |
3. Put in a tablespoon of berbere spice and mustard seeds together in a hot saucepan. Stir until the mustard seeds begin to pop and smoke.
4. Add in the additional 1/4 cup of water and stir until the water has all evaporated again, this normally takes a minute or two. This gives the berbere and mustard paste additional time to cook. It gives it a really odd taste if you don't cook down the berbere paste so keep at it.
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| Lean away and turn on your exhaust fan |
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| Pretty much done |
4. Toss in the garlic and onion and cook until the onion has begun to brown and caramelise, 6-10 minutes.
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| Sorta hard to tell with the colour though |
5. Blob in your tomato paste and cook for a few seconds to sweeten the mixture.
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| This is what you want |
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| Bubble bubble, toil and trouble! |
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| Almost there! |
7. Add the canned tomatoes and season. I normally add at least a tablespoon of sugar, salt and hot chilli powder. I prefer this curry a little sweeter to be honest and the spiciness of hot chilli cuts through nicely. Heat to simmer and allow to cook for a further 5-10 minutes, until the colour brightens and the lentils thicken slightly.
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| Delicious |
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