This Thai Green Curry Lentils dish is New Zealand’s Revive Café’s best-selling lentil hotpot and I can understand why – it’s really delicious (and healthy to boot).
Don’t be put off by the long list of ingredients – they really do add complexity of flavour to the dish. By the way, kumara, for those of you unfamiliar with the name, is New Zealand’s Maori name for sweet potato.
One small change to the recipe: I felt it needed just a bit more sweetness, so threw in some raisins at the end. If you don’t like raisins (or sultanas), leave them out.
I must say, this dish is much better the next day once it’s been given time for the flavours to amalgamate. I recommend you make it ahead of time, cool and chill it (or freeze it) and have it at a later time.
THAI GREEN CURRY LENTILS
Ingredients
- 3 cups kumara sweet potato , cubed – peeled or unpeeled
- 1 Tbsp oil
- 1 onion , sliced
- 2 cloves garlic , finely chopped or crushed
- 1 Tbsp ginger , finely chopped or grated
- 2 Tbsp about 1 stick lemon grass (fresh or frozen), finally chopped (I used a lemon grass puree)
- 6 kaffir lime leaves, fresh or frozen; optional
- 1 tsp Thai green curry paste
- 5 cups hot water
- 1 cup raw brown lentils
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 Tbsp honey or date puree
- A handful of raisins or sultanas (optional)
- 200 ml coconut cream
- ½ cup freshly chopped coriander (cilantro)
- 1 red capsicum (bell pepper), diced
Instructions
- Peel kumara (sweet potato) if preferred, and chop into 2cm (1in) cubes, mix with oil and bake in the oven at 180⁰C (350⁰F) for 15 minutes, or until soft.
- Saute onion, oil, garlic, ginger, lemon grass, lime leaves and curry paste for 5 minutes, or until onion is soft.
- Add water and lentils, bring to the boil, turn down and simmer for 25 minutes, or until the lentils are soft. Drain off any water.
- Add salt, honey, raisins (optional), and coconut cream and stir until well mixed.
- Add the roasted kumara (sweet potato) and mix. Garnish with coriander and capsicum (if you don’t like raw capsicum, you can just as easily throw it in with the lentils so it’s soft) and serve.
WOW, this was amazing… having it right now for lunch as leftovers :). Thank you so much for the recipe, it’s definitely in my favorites for good in Foodgawker now.
http://tastynchic.blogspot.ca
That’s fantastic! I’ve still got left-overs in the freezer – it’s a keeper alright!