I was feeling in the need for some nice fibre last night and a conversation in my Nutrition 2 class about the best way to negate the effects of phytates in legumes had me hankering for lentils, so I made this lovely curry and thought I might share it with you.
Before we begin, just to share with you the advice our Nutrition lecturer, the lovely Mattia, gave us for the best way to get rid of the binders, or phytates, in legumes, soak them for at least a couple of hours, discard the soaking water, and then cook them with a dash of acid, vinegar or lemon juice, I also have tomatoes in this, so all our bases are pretty much covered. Shall we begin?
I struggle a bit with vegan food. Becaause I don’t eat soy and will not eat anything processed, it can be a bit bland, but this was really nice, so nice in fact that I quickly plated up another bowl and took a photo and decided to share it with you.
Ingredients
Serves 4
1 tbs olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped
1 carrot, quartered and then sliced
1 stick celery, sliced
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tbs mild curry powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 a sweet potato, peeled and cubed
1/2 cup of pumpkin, cubed
1 zucchini, quartered then sliced
3/4 cup French (black) lentils
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
1 x 400g diced tomatoes
1/4 teaspoon salt
Broccoli florets
Seeds for sprinkling
Put the lentil in a small bowl and cover with water, soak for at least two hours, but no more than six, discard water, okay, they are ready to use.
Heat the olive oil in a small pot on a medium heat, sauté onion, carrot and celery until the onion is translucent and it is all fragrant, add the garlic, cook one minute, add the curry powder and the cumin, give it a good stir and cook for about half a minute to wake up the spices, tip in the sweet potato, pumpkin, zucchini, lentils, lemon juice and tomatoes, add one cup of water and bring to the boil, turn down the heat and simmer until very thick and the lentils are cooked through, about 45 minutes to one hour. Turn off the heat, stir in the salt and broccoli florets, let it sit for five minutes and then dish up into four bowls, top with seeds of your choice, I used pepitas and sunflower seeds.
Comments