Carrot and Cucumber Stew with Red Lentils

I’m back! I’ve still been busy travelling and cooking (festival food!) and now it feels great to post again. Hope you all are doing well. I see a lot of new readers reading my blog along with the consistent readers – and all I want to say is Thank you! After hogging on numerous Diwali sweets, I decided to balance all that richness with something healthy. I like stews – they are flavorful and loaded with vegetables. You don’t need nothing else to feel like you have had a wholesome meal. I used red lentils to incorporate protein into the dish. The veggies used are carrots and cucumbers. The fact that it hardly requires any oil makes it a winner from the health perspective. You can serve this with rice or rotis or just eat a bowl of this on its own.

Recipe Details :
Serves: 3-4 pax
Time: 45 mins
Difficulty: Medium

Ingredients :

• 4 medium carrots, peeled and chopped into cubes
• 1 large cucumber, peeled and chopped into cubes
• 2 medium onions, finely chopped
• 2 green chillies, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup red lentils/ red masoor dal
• 3/4 cup tomato puree
• 1 tbsp cumin seeds
• 1 tbsp coriander powder
• 2 tsp turmeric powder
• 1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
• Salt to taste
• 3 cups water
• 1 tsp oil
• Curry leaves for garnish (optional)

Method:

• Wash the red lentils using a colander under cold water 3-4 times and keep aside. This is done to remove the grit present in the lentils.
• Heat a pot on medium heat and add the 1 tsp oil. Now add the carrots and onions and saute for 5 minutes. Once done, add the ginger-garlic paste and green chillies and cook them for another 3 minutes.
• Once the ginger-garlic paste is nicely mixed with the carrots and onions, add the cumin seeds and saute it for a minute till the aroma of cumin fills the cooking area.
• Now add the tomato puree, salt, coriander and turmeric powder along with 2 cups of water and mix well.
• Add the lentils and stir to combine.
• Bring everything to a boil and then lower the flame and let the whole broth simmer for around 30 minutes.
• Keep occasionally stirring it in between and add more water if necessary depending upon the consistency. Do not add too much liquid (that’s soup) – it should be a bit thick.



• Finally, now add the chopped cucumbers to the lentil stew and mix it in. Let it simmer for another 5 minutes. Add a little more salt at this stage.



• Garnish with some curry leaves and serve it hot. All I can say is you will not be able to resist this bowl of goodness 🙂

Tips:

• Wash the lentils well. If you want a head start on cooking them, just soak them for some time in cold water.
• You can serve this as soup as well. Once everything is cooked well, just blend with a hand mixer / blender.