Beautiful Lentils

"Las lentejas te suben lo bonito."
- a Sevillano, circa 1995

Lentils make you pretty, that's what they told me when I studied abroad in Spain. My señora made steaming, thick lentil stews the whole year I was there and looking back at the photos, I think I did look rather radiant.

I introduced lentils to Malanga Baby this week at the same time that I introduced a third meal per day- lunch! Both were a resounding success. And I must say, Malanga Baby is looking prettier by the minute.

I made a batch of lentils for the first time Tuesday night and tried again tonight with some modifications. Here's what I've done so far and as an added bonus, I have a recipe for adults as long as you're putting those lentils on the stove.

Baby Lentil Method- BASIC

- I use brown lentils, which tend to get mushier than green lentils. The Goya brand is good, but so is Vitarroz and probably any other brand.

- Soak the lentils for about 1.5 hours-2 hours. They really start falling apart after 2 hours.

- Bring a pot of water to boil, then add lentils. Bring to boil again, then reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes.

- When draining the lentils, RESERVE some of the water for pureeing.

- Let lentils cool, then put in food processor with some of the water.

- You can use a sieve/strainer if you want to make the puree even smoother.

Notes on the basic method:

- Using a sieve is a big pain. I did this on Tuesday and it added another 10-15 minutes of cooking time. I also lost a lot of my lentils. I got about 5 ounces of pureed lentils out of 1/2 cup of dry lentils.

- I forgot to reserve the cooking water and in fact, didn't add enough water at all while pureeing. I ended up adding some breast milk to the lentils just before serving.

Baby Lentil Method- VARIATION

Even though I added a dash of cumin to the basic recipe above, the lentils still tasted kind of bland to me. I served them with some plain yogurt to make the whole meal a little tangier. Tonight, I played around with adding some fried onions.

- Follow basic method above. Add an "onion pique" (a bay leaf attached to a peeled onion using a clove as a tack) to the boiling water for extra flavor. The lentils will absorb the flavor as they cook.

- After draining lentils, fry a few slices of onion in olive oil in the cleaned out pan you used for the lentils. Add these to the food processor along with the lentils and puree.

Since I was making lentils again tonight anyway and needed to use the rest of the onion, I decided to make myself one of my favorite lentil recipes (copied out of a book of which I don't know the name).

Lentils for adults

Ingredients

- 1 cup lentils

- 1/2 onion, sliced

- 1 small crate cherry or grape tomatoes- halved or quartered

- 5 tablespoons olive oil

- 2 teaspoons sumac (a Turkish spice)

- sea salt and black pepper to taste

Method

- Boil lentils as above in basic method.

- Drain lentils, clean out pan and fry onion in 2 tablespoons olive oil.

- Add the lentils, tomatos, sumac, remaining olive oil, salt & pepper and mix together.