Zucchini curry Masoor Dal

Hey everyone! It's back to school for me, and that means I turned a new leaf and I'm sticking to my commitments. From now on I'll be posting every Saturday- so stay tuned for new tips and veggie recipes!

Today I was looking for something new to write about while emptying my pantry. I noticed that there was a bit of red lentils left over, also known as Masoor Dal. I'd bought them just because they were pretty, but I'd never eaten them before. My first experience cooking them was a disaster : I thought that they needed to be soaked overnight, like other lentils I knew of. The result was mush. It turns out that cooking this pearlies are much easier, you need to soak them for only 15 minutes before cooking.

This is what Masoor Dal looks like (red lentils). Source: Wiki Commons

There are many recipes on the internet for these lentils, most of them are Indian, very tasty. Since I didn't have the required ingredients for many that I saw, I made up my own recipe using tips and matched ingredients I had with ingredients I saw in some recipes. The result turned out to be quite good!

I present to you the Zucchini Curry Masoor Dal.

Ingredients (for two people):

-a teaspoon of curry spice (you can make your own or buy it ready)
-olive oil
-half a zucchini diced
-half an onion, diced
-about 100 g of red lentils
-bay leaf

Steps

#1. Cover the red lentils in water and soak them from 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile. . .
#2. Sprinkle olive oil into a frying pan or wok. When hot, add curry. Mix for 30 seconds. Then fry onions, and add the zucchini and bay leaf.

Here's what it looks like while cooking.

#3. When onions are transparent and zucchini is slightly cooked, add lentils. After everything is mixed together, for about a minute, add a cup of water. Add salt. Wait until the water is almost completely evaporated and then - ta da! It's done. The cooking takes less than half an hour.

Finished product!

It's an ideal recipes for those who really wanted have protein and forgot to soak their beans/lentils overnight. Having Masoor Dal on hand proves to be really useful, and now I'm slightly ashamed it was sitting in my pantry for all these months.

Enjoy the marvels of Indian cuisine! I sure love it.