spiralofhope

Recipes >

A simple dish that’s very tasty hot or cold.

My first recipe.

This is a chili-like bean dish, eaten alone. It uses readily available ingredients, only one medium-sized pot, has only two things you need to chop up. It takes a good half an hour to get past the preparation and initial stages, and over an hour for it to cook slowly.

This makes two big bowls.

Very tasty.. tamer than the curry alone, the onions definitely add a flavour. The lentils are still pretty firm. It’s an interesting stew of sorts. Of note, there is a sweetness to it which I can’t put my finger on. It’s probably from either the onions (browned a bit too much — caramelizes the sugars) or the raisins.

I think this can be eaten with some fresh bread as a meal unto itself. A glass of milk with it would be nice to help tame the spicyness, not that it’s very spicy.

This is REALLY good cold!

Props to to https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/76283/vegetarian-bean-curry/ for the original recipe.

• 2 tbsp olive[doesn’t exist] oil

Put the oil in a large-ish pot.

Turn the heat to medium.

• 1 white onion, chopped.

Chop the onion while the oil heats. Don’t worry too much about how well you chop it, but if you chop it finer, it’ll take less time to cook until tender.

Add the chopped onion into the pot. Stir it occasionally and cook it until it becomes tender and a bit clear. This isn’t an exact science.. it will take some time, and it’s ok to walk away for a while while it sits there sputtering away. Adding a lid might help. If the onions brown, you’re not stirring enough. A little browning is probably not a bad thing, but you don’t want to dominate the flavour of the dish with browned onions.

• 1/2 cup lentils (any kind), dry

• 2 cloves of garlic, minced

Stir these into the mix. You want to stir regularly to avoid burning the garlic. Cook for a couple of minutes.

• 3 tbsp Curry, (I tried mild indian curry – there are MANY varieties of curry to try)
• 1 tbsp cumin, ground

• 1 pinch cayenne pepper

Quickly stir in each of these. The curry will probably stain a wooden spoon yellow. Don’t worry.

• 1 28oz can crushed tomatos (the entire can)
• 1 15 oz can chick peas (garbanzo beans) – my can was 19oz, so I guessed.
• 1 8oz can kidney beans (I used red) – my can was 19oz, so I guessed at less than half.

• 1/2 cup raisins (I used thompsons seedless raisins, I doubt any other kind would be good)

Lower the heat to minimum and let it simmer for at least an hour. Put a lid on it and walk away for a while.

• Salt and pepper to taste (I didn’t add any)

I first made thie recipe cooking on fairly low for a bit over an hour, then adding a bit of water and cooking it a littler warmer, so it sputtered a little. This was because I felt the lentils and beans weren’t quite cooked enough because of the lower temperature first hour. I stirred it only once during that second cooking time.