Lentil is, sadly, not frequent on my menu. But for every new year feast I have some in hope of a plentiful New Year. Truly, this lentil dish is one of my top three dishes that I tried and enjoyed at the new year dinners. And you know that everybody tries to really shine for a new years dinner, preparing their top dishes and sweets. So this really says something about this humble, jet extraordinarily tasty dish.
Making spicy sweet lentil
Surprisingly, the dish itself is a super fast and easy dish to cook, with a magnificent and ful taste. In its most basic form, it involves boiling the lentil for 10 minutes in water, adding the tomato date sauce from the store and cooking for an additional couple of minutes.
But it is not easy to get the sauce in the shops. Luckily, it is fairly easy to make from scratch. The easiest way is using date paste, tomato puree and herbs. First, cook the lentil for 8 minutes in just enough water to cover the lentils. Add water that evaporates to prevent burning the lentils. After 10 minutes add one part of date paste and four parts of tomato puree, by volume. I usually use one tablespoon of date paste and four spoons of tomato puree per 100 g of lentil. Salt and pepper are the standard spices. For that sweet oriental rich taste use cloves, cardamom, cinnamon and chili. The amount of chili depends on your preference for spicy taste, while the other three spices are best used in roughly the equal ratio. Cook for an additional 2 minutes to allow for the tastes to mix. Adjust the amount and consistency of the sauce to your liking by further cooking. The longer you cook, the thicker the sauce will be. As for the spices, for 100 g of lentil I add two pinches of chili and three-four pinches of other spices.
Making date paste
It is fairly easy to find tomato puree, but it is not that easy to find date paste. Fortunately it is easy to make the paste from dried dates. And what is even better, you can make it in the exact quantity needed for your sauce. The best way is to finely chop two dates and cook them for 10 minutes. Make sure you cut them perpendicular to their length, so you cut the long fibers. After the cooking dates are super soft and you can easily mush them to pulp with a fork.
Spicy sweet lentil recipe
- lentil 100 g
- tomato paste 4 tablespoons
- date paste 1 tablespoon
- powdered cloves, cardamom, cinnamon 4 pinches each
- powdered chili 2 pinches
Cook the lentil in water for 8 minutes. Remove excess water, leave just enough to cover the lentil. Add tomato paste and date paste, spices and cook for additional 2 minutes. If you want a thicker dish, cook more. If the dish is too thick, add hot water. The dish can be eaten either hot or cold.
