Crushed puy lentils with tahini & cumin

October 21, 2017

We've been Ottolenghi-clubbing for a good, long while now (our first meeting was Feb 2015!) - it's a great way to sample a range of Yotam's wonderful dishes without driving yourself crazy with preparation. This time around was as wonderful as ever - we had an aubergine, courgette and yoghurt upside-down cake, black miso sticky rice with peanuts and broccoli (both from Ottolenghi's Christmas column) and saffron, date and almond rice from Plenty More plus contributions from me and Cindy. See our facebook page for the full rundown.

I decided to make this crushed lentil dish from Ottolenghi's Guardian column. I'm a big fan of Ottolenghi's dips and spreads, and this one sounded perfect. It combines a relatively simple process (maybe 40 minutes all up) with a superb outcome - the lentil mix is delicious, with a wonderful  thick texture and a nice garlicky, cumin flavour on top of the nutty lentils. This is a perfect introduction to Ottolenghi - fancy and delicious but without a lot of the complicated methods or odd ingredients that characterise a lot of Otto's dishes. We'll definitely make this again.

Crushed puy lentils with tahini and cumin
(via Ottolenghi's Guardian column)

250g puy lentils
30g butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
1.5 teaspoons ground cumin
3 tomatoes, cut into a 1cm dice
25g coriander leaves, roughly chopped
5 tablespoons tahini
2 tablespoons lemon juice
salt and pepper
half a red onion, sliced finely
4 hard-boiled eggs
olive oil

Bring a medium saucepan of water to the boil and throw in the lentils. Cook for 20 minutes or so until tender and then drain and set aside.

Melt the butter with the olive oil in a frying pan. Add the garlic and cumin and cook for a minute or two. 

Throw in most of the coriander (reserve some for garnishing), all of the tomatoes and the lentils. Cook for another few minutes and then stir through the tahini and lemon juice, about half a cup of water and heaps of salt and pepper.

Turn the heat down and cook on low for five minutes or so, stirring. Roughly mash the lentils with a potato masher until some of them break up and you get a nice thick consistency. 

Serve, with a drizzle of extra olive oil, garnishes of coriander and onion and the eggs. We had ours with bread, but it's hearty enough to eat on its own.