RCP: Lentil and Vegetable stew - "Indian style"

I hesitate to call this a recipe as much as a technique for making a vegetable stew or soup out of whatever appeals to you at the time. This arose out of the need to use up some stuff in the fridge and the arrival of my vegetarian daughter home for spring break...

mixed lentils - I had some leftover from a soup mix - I forgot how much but it required 4 cups water to cook them. - They might have even been pre cooked a little?

2-3 tablespoons Olive oil
1 yellow onion diced
bunch of shitake mushrooms - cleaned, dried and chopped - 8 ounces? need to use before they go bad
1 cup of leftover white wine
1 tblspoon "curry" powder (I had some whole foods handy)
1 tblspoon garam masala seasoning
1 can diced tomatoes and juice
1 lb carrots chopped into relatively big pieces, not so big that you have to cut them to eat them but not mirepoix size either.
4-5 stalks celery chopped into same size as carrots (see note on shrooms)
4 cups vegetable broth (I had some pacific in a carton)
1 red pepper - roasted, peeled and chopped into large pieces
handful of fresh spinach chopped
handful of fresh chard - de-stemmed and chopped.
handful of fresh basil
2 tablespoons flour
1/4 cup water

Clean and pick through the lentils, add to the water in a saucepan/stockpot and boil for about 1/2 hour until almost done - taste periodically, you want them the lentil equivalent of al dente. Drain them and set aside.

Heat the oil in a dutch oven or stock pot or whatever. Cook the onions until translucent. Add the shrooms and cook until they give off their juice and it is reduced. Add the wine and reduce. Add the spices and cook for 2 minutes or so until fragrant. Add the carrots, celery and tomatoes. They'll give up juices and reduce too. Add the broth and simmer for about 1/2 hour. Add the lentils and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the chard/spinach/basil and put the top on, turn the heat way down and cook for a few minutes or so, really just until the greens are wilted.

Now check your salt (the tomatoes and broth add a lot) and adjust. Also, now's the time to decide if it's too thin for you. I wanted a stew like consistency so I made a slurry of the flour and water and added it to the pot. Cooked it for another two or three minutes until it was thickened.

House smelled wonderful. This made a boatload of very filling stew for leftovers that got more and more flavorful each day. The thing I like the best is that by adding the veggies at a time determined by their consistency, you get fully cooked but still somewhat crispy (crispy is the wrong word, more like "toothsome?") veggies with great blended flavors.

Speaking of leftovers, and with apologies to Stewart, I put a piece of leftover homemade cornbeef in a bowl of this stew for lunch today - heaven absolute heaven.

[Jenise]

Sounds delish, Howard. Aren't lentils wonderful?

Howard, thanks for the technique. I've been looking for a base to use to get more tomatoes into my diet -- l've read some really positive stuff about lycopene in tomatoes -- especially cooked tomatoes.

This is a great start -- tomatoes, lentils, two of my favorites.

Regards, Bob

IMHO spices do not like being boiled. So I would fry or dry roast the spices before the mushrooms and wine.

I usually soak lentils overnight and then cook them with a lot of water in a Pyrex in the microwave for 20 minutes.

Make a variation of this with diced chorizo for carnivores. Adds lots of flavour and meat.

This is quite similar to Indian dal sak (lentils and greens). Perhaps from Goa, where adding wine wouldn't be unusual (the Portuguese influence showing). Mushrooms aren't completely unknown in India, but they don't seem to be a very common ingredient.

In India, they'd use a custom mix of whole spices instead of "curry powder", probably, as Warren pointed out, dry-roasted for a minute or so before being ground to a powder. It's also commonplace in Indian dals (cooked lentils) or sambars (pigeon pea soups) to see spices added at two or three stages: an initial wet masala (spice mixture) with coriander, turmeric, black pepper, etc. ground to a paste along with ginger and garlic, added after cooking the onions (which in India are usually cooked until they start to caramelize and turn a light golden color) and just before the dal and vegetables are added. Then when the dish is nearly done, a spice mixture called tarka or chaunk is added. This consists of whole spices (black mustard seeds, curry leaves, dried red chiles, etc.) fried for half a minute or so in a tablespoon or so of oil, then poured sizzling over the finished lentil dish and partly mixed in. Finally, some garam masala might be sprinkled over the top as a garnish.

-Paul W.

Hi Paul and Warren,
that's why I called it "Indian style"... Thanks very much for the lesson. Often I try to be very authentic but this wasn't one of those times. I find the information fascinating, however, and am grateful that you took the time to post them.Thanks again.

Jenise,
I love lentils. Very tasty, I love the texture, it's a great starchy base... what's not to like?

Hi Bob,
Yeah, it's not authentic... see comments by Paul and Warren, but it sure was tasty and used up a bunch of stuff in the fridge.

Hi Paul and Warren,
that's why I called it "Indian style"... Thanks very much for the lesson. Often I try to be very authentic but this wasn't one of those times. I find the information fascinating, however, and am grateful that you took the time to post them.Thanks again.

Nothing at all wrong with not being authentic. I was, in fact, struck by how close your improv fridge-emptier was to the authentic Indian original. I do that sort of thing all the time with Chinese cookery (not comfortable with the Indian idiom yet to venture too far afield).

-Paul W.