Lentil Recipes

Lentils - one of the Healthiest Foods. 

Lentils are widely used in vegetarian cooking for their nutritional value. Lentils are one of the healthiest food items.

Lentils include pulses, beans, dals, legumes. They contain high level of proteins, vitamin B1, dietary fiber, minerals, iron ect. They are rich in protein next to soya. Lentils are recommended for diabetics.

The variety of lentils includes:

English Name - Indian Name

• Red lentil - Masoor
• Green lentil – Moong bean, or Mung bean or GreenGram
• Black lentil - Black Gram, Whole Urad Bean
• Chickpea - Bengal Gram, Chana
• Pigeon pea, Yellow lentil – Toor, Toovar, Arahar
• Kidney bean - Rajma
• Cow pea, black eyed pea - Lobia or chowli

Lentils are used whole or split. Whole lentils are more nutririous because of their husks. When the husk – skin is removed from the whole lentil and the lentil is split, the split lentil is refered to as dal or daal in Indian languages. The cooked lentil recipe, either made with whole or split lentil is also called as Dal.

So the Indian Dal which you get in restaurants is made with a variety of whole or split lentil. The dals are refered according to the variety of lentil that is split.

• Split black lentil – urad dal, white lentil
• Split red lentil – masoor dal
• Split green lentil – moong dal, mung dal, green gram dal
• Split yellow lentil – toovar dal, toor dal, tur dal, arahar dal
• Split chickpeas - chana dal, bengal gram dal

The cooking time of lentils is short. The split lentil, that is, dal, cooks still faster. It is combined with rice as it has similar cooking time such as in Khichadi. Cooked lentils become thick so water is used to thin it.

The widely known Indian Recipes using Lentils are:

Dal Fry - serve with rice and roti – bread.

Sambar - Vegetable/Lentil dish-Serve with Idli, Plain Steamed Rice and Dosa

Chickpea recipes- More about chickpeas.

Rasam - serve as appetizer, soup, and also with Plain Steamed Rice

Mung Bean Curry- Serve with rice/roti/bread. Can use other beans/lentils too.

Mung Beans and Rice Dish - Khichadi. - Quick One Dish Meal.

How to cook chickpeas. - Easy and simple way to cook chickpeas.

Fried Chickpeas - healthy snack

Dahi Vada - A cool snack with urad dal (white lentil) and yogurt.

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