Tuesday 30 October 2012

MoFo Day 30: Red Lentil Kofte

I haven't been eating enough raw veg over the last week or so. I really don't much care for salad - it always seems too boring and there is something much more comforting about hot food.  I really need to find a way of eating more raw food though so I decided to focus on finding one new salad recipe each of the next few days. 

I'm starting out with lentil koftes. Always served in a lettuce leaf, these would form the centre of a good salad dish. I found a number of recipes for this dish - one in my Middle Eastern Vegetarian Cookery cook, another at Almost Turkish blog and yet another at Hayriye's Turkish Food and Recipes Mine is a hybrid mix of all 3 recipes, subbing the olive oil with vegetable stock and

Red Lentil Kofte

1/2 cup red lentils, well rinsed
1 onion finely chopped
1/4 cup bulgar wheat
1 Tbsp tomato paste
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp paprika
juice of 1 lemon
2 Tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped
1/2 Tbsp fresh mint, finely chopped
2 spring onions, finely chopped
Little Gem or small Romaine lettuce

Cover well rinsed lentils in water, bring to the boil and simmer for around 20 minutes, until lentils are soft but still holding their shape, adding more water as necessary. Remove from the heat season with a little salt, stir in bulgar wheat, cover and leave for at least 10 minutes.

In another pan saute the onion in a little vegetable stock for 2-3 minutes. Add tomato paste, cumin and paprika and cook for a further 2 minutes. Stir in the the lentil mixture. Add lemon juice, parsley, mint and chopped spring onions. and combine well. When the mixture is quite cold, serve wrapped in lettuce leaves.






                      

2 comments:

  1. Red lentils are my favorites! I love how you served them in the lettuce leaves!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Elizabeth That seems to be how they are served traditionally. They are delicious. I topped them today with some sumac and harissa spices and they were scrumptious.

      Delete