Also, while I love lentils, I've never actually cooked them myself before. So that's a new thing for me, too.

Mmmm...that recipe looks very nice and you've reminded me that I've got a bag of lamb chops in the freezer. It's things like this that remind me that I've no hope becoming vegetarian. I tried once and after two weeks, I drove past a flock of sheep in a paddock and started salivating. :) At least I tried!

I am a fan of the lentil.

Recipe report:

It was very good, but the addition of the tomato and spinach at the end was weird. Next time I'll add the tomatoes at the same time as the lentils, so that they break down a bit more and make the sauce richer, and skip the spinach. I added fresh lemon juice at the end, which was good, and I garnished with fresh cilantro, which tried to be good but was competing too much with the spinach (hence, no spinach next time; also, the spinach texture was weird).

I had no idea it was so easy to cook lentils! I always assumed they needed a bunch of soaking, which is part of the reason I never attempted anything with them. But yum! Yum yum yum.

Oh, I love lentils! One of my favorite recipes in the world is an Indian dish, red lentils with garlic butter. It's basically lentils, turmeric, salt, butter or oil, and a boatload of garlic. It's total comfort food.

The only thing I don't like about lentils is needing to pick them over. Oddly, I've found that the dirt-cheap ones from the Indian grocery almost never have stones or dirt in them (I still rinse them, of course), but the pricy bulk ones from Whole Foods almost always have at least a few pebbles.

OMGOMGOMG

This recipe combines four of my favorite things: lamb, lentils, curry, and spinach.

Thanks for posting this!

Oh, and there's a really good "Good Eats" episode all about lentils -- I learned that the reason you don't need to soak lentils is because of their lenticular shape (yes, "lens" came from "lentil") and their extremely thin skin.

Om nom. Nom.

Funny - I was thinking of making a post about lentils. I make lentil soup a lot, but it always seems to come out exactly the same, no matter how I try to change it up. Yet I had lentil soup at a restaurant a couple of years ago, that was amazing, and I can't for the life of me reproduce that taste/feel/look.

This is pretty much what my lentil soup always comes out looking like (though usually with some kind of greens in it):

≡ Click to see image ≡

And the one I'd love to reproduce looks a bit more like this:

≡ Click to see image ≡

except, deeper, darker, richer. It definitely has a good bit of olive oil and tomato paste, with a sort of deep, dark, red sheen thing going on, but it doesn't taste "tomato-y". In fact... now that I'm thinking about it, in many ways the look of the soup I loved reminds me of gumbo. Maybe I'll try it next time by starting with a dark roux of sorts.

Vegetable rights and peas, man!

I am also a big fan of the lentil.

That curry looks fantastic and would be a great slow-cooker recipe. When I make a lamb stew or curry I always buy meat from a halal butcher in an Indian or Pakistani neighbourhood. It's tons cheaper than the supermarket and the meat is always very lean and is ready boned and cubed.

lentil stew/soup is my favorite winter dish. I make a very large pot, then freeze it in portions. But often it doesn't last that long.
The simplest recipe I ever saw was for lentil puree, which Spanish Moms use to get their kids into eating healthy pulses:-

4 cups of brown or puy lentils
I very large onion chopped
2 slices of chorizo about 1/2 inch thick (or 1/2 teaspoon of pimenton dulce, sweet paprika)
Some people put the cut-off rind and fat from the jamon serrano here and then take it out of the pot before pureeing)
2 carrots (and any other stew veg you like I add swede)
6 whole pepper corns
2 bay leaves
Salt
Water (two knuckles deep)

The whole thing is boiled up for about 1 1/2 hours. Then pureed in batches. It comes out really creamy.

So that's the base, and babies have this from about 2 years old. Then you can add whatever each member of the family likes, a dash of tabasco, chopped fresh parsley, chopped fresh garlic, chopped tomatoes, croutons etc.,

Comfort food!

When I make it I add green chillies & garlic at the start, pimenton picante and potatoes later. I don't puree it.

I really think the pimenton dulce makes all the difference. The paprika powder I get here just doesn't taste the same so I buy about 2 little jars each time I'm in Spain.

I have a large gang visiting from Spain from Tuesday if anyone wants some just mail me!

taz, I wonder if that silky restaurant lentil soup contained veal stock. It's a reliable restaurant trick to give a truly silky mouthfeel without a pronounced flavor.

I've never tried it, myself, but if you cook with veal, that might be the trick. Otherwise, using a concentrated homemade meat stock with plenty of gelatin* might do it.

*I originally typed "genital," which will certainly give me pause next time I'm eating lentil soup.

I admit that the only lentil soup in my repertoire is a half-assed version of red lentil dal, with plenty of onion and curry and scallions. I might make that tonight. Mmmm.

taz, yeah, that "deeper darker richer" seemed to be going on with my recipe until the end, when the not-very-stewed tomatoes just kind of broke it. I think tomato paste next time might be better, and maybe some balsamic vinegar. And/or red wine. And/or possibly blood orange juice, which I was silly enough *not* to buy when I was at the store.

I haven't lived in a place that sells blood oranges at the markets since I lived in Italy, and I get all excited when I see them here, but I never buy them. Silly me.