This recipe is by request. It is from my recent LBL week. On the first day I had planned Lentil dumplings with tomato sauce. I have added more flavourings here than I had available on LBL!
I had allocated 100g of flour and 100g lentils, but that was far far too much and would do a meal for 2, or 3, with accompaniments
100g flour, pref s.r. 45p/1.5kg 3p
100g red lentils, 20p/100g (cheaper from Indian shops)
tin tomatoes, 31p
large onion, chopped, 5p
Total of 59p, Serving 2 – 30p a portion, Serving 3 – 20p a portion
Just cover the lentils with boiling water and simmer for 10 minutes. We want to keep them whole, and def don’t want them disintegrating into the water. So after 10 minutes, keep an eye on them, add more boiling water if needed and drain them just as soon as they are al dente.
Put the flour in a bowl and add the cooked, drained lentils. Now season with salt and pepper and maybe some grainy mustard. Stir everything together well and add enough water to make a dough. Divide it up into ping pong sized balls, or smaller. They can now be set aside until you are ready to cook them. If you have used self raising flour, they would be best cooked straight away, and you will get lighter dumplings with s.r.
You can either put the dumplings in a steamer and steam for about 20 minutes, or drop into boiling water for about 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, saute the onion until softened. Add to the tinned tomatoes, and season those to taste. Whizz smooth, or leave as it is. Warm through.
Serve the dumplings with the tomato sauce poured over, with a green vegetable
Variations
These would be lovely with Indian spices added, a tsp cumin, half tsp turmeric and half tsp garam masala and a good tsp of garlic/ginger paste
Several frozen spinach lumps (defrosted) mixed in would go well, with or without spices. Or the spinach could be mixed into the tomato sauce
As well as the tomato sauce, a good dollop of tomato puree could be added to the dumpling mix
A nice crispy rasher of bacon, and/or a poached egg to go with
Any leftovers can be cut up small and dropped into the next soup you make
You could spice up the tomato sauce with spices and chilli if you like
They give a good whack of protein to anything don’t they. The broth is a good idea, like the sound of that
Thank you for this!
Made the baking powder version and added the mashed remains for a bag of frozen spinach, a bit of hot sauce and cooked them in chicken broth.
A few dumplings with some broth over the top were really good. Those red lentils are so versatile!
Hope you like them after all this anticipation!
Thank you, Lesley! Can’t wait to try these out! ☺️