What’s your go to seasoning blend for a basic dish? Sorry for the game of 20 questions, but lentils aren’t the staple in my region that they are elsewhere. I want to be more versatile in how I use them (and other legumes). I’ve got red beans and rice on lock, and I made a mean pot of frijoles charro last night, but, to date, lentils are basically nothing more than a way to bulk out ground meat recipes like taco meat or sloppy joes. I could stand to learn how to enjoy them in a more naked form, so to speak.
Mujadara/megadara is a classic lentil+rice dish. I love it. At its core, it’s burnt/heavily caramalised onions, brown lentils, rice, salt. Cumin is a must imo, along with a pinch of cinnamon. Add a pinch of baking soda to the onions 2 mins into cooking them, and they’ll caramalise way faster
Unfortunately, I too am from a region that does not really value lentils. We have a singular lentil dish that’s really popular here, but hardly anything beyond that.
The dish also hardly uses seasoning. 🫠
Very basically, you cook some brown lentils and separately, make a roux. Then combine the two. Add salt, a bayleaf and a splash of vinegar. Eat with soft noodles.
As for non-regional recipes that I’m aware of:
Lentil curry is great. You can basically just make a normal curry and replace whatever protein you’d use with lentils.
The Indian cuisine has tons of dishes under the term “dal”. I believe, that word does just mean “split lentils”, but you will find lots of recipes with that term anyways.
To my knowledge, what many(/most?) of these recipes also share is that they overcook split lentils until they disintegrate and you’re left with a creamy base, which you can then pimp with all kinds of spices.
What’s your go to seasoning blend for a basic dish? Sorry for the game of 20 questions, but lentils aren’t the staple in my region that they are elsewhere. I want to be more versatile in how I use them (and other legumes). I’ve got red beans and rice on lock, and I made a mean pot of frijoles charro last night, but, to date, lentils are basically nothing more than a way to bulk out ground meat recipes like taco meat or sloppy joes. I could stand to learn how to enjoy them in a more naked form, so to speak.
Mujadara/megadara is a classic lentil+rice dish. I love it. At its core, it’s burnt/heavily caramalised onions, brown lentils, rice, salt. Cumin is a must imo, along with a pinch of cinnamon. Add a pinch of baking soda to the onions 2 mins into cooking them, and they’ll caramalise way faster
Unfortunately, I too am from a region that does not really value lentils. We have a singular lentil dish that’s really popular here, but hardly anything beyond that.
The dish also hardly uses seasoning. 🫠
Very basically, you cook some brown lentils and separately, make a roux. Then combine the two. Add salt, a bayleaf and a splash of vinegar. Eat with soft noodles.
As for non-regional recipes that I’m aware of:
To my knowledge, what many(/most?) of these recipes also share is that they overcook split lentils until they disintegrate and you’re left with a creamy base, which you can then pimp with all kinds of spices.