Lentil Dip

Lentil dip I made this last weekend and it lasted a few different visitors.  So simple to make and keeps well in the fridge.

2/3 cup red or french green lentils ( i had green so that's what i went with )

olive oil
2 tsps. grated fresh ginger
1 sweet onion, chopped
2 tbsp. cumin
14 ounce can of chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp. fresh cilantro chopped ( you can always omit this if you hate cilantro )

Wash the lentils in a strainer under cold water, and really drain well.  Cover the bottom of a frying pan lightly with olive oil.  Heat the oil and then add the onion and ginger and cook for about 4 minutes or until soft. 

Add the cumin and lentils.  Cook for about one minute or until thoroughly mixed.  Add the tomatoes and another cup of water.  Crank up the heat to get the mixture to boil, then turn down to simmer. 

Watch the pot.  As the juice starts to boil down, just continue to stir so the mixture doesn't burn. It takes about 20 minutes to get thick and get rid of all the juice. 

Transfer the mixture to a cuisinart and mix until really processed.  Add cilantro ( or don't ), season with salt.  Serve with tortilla chips or pita chips.   The other bite in the pic is crostini with a slice of goat gouda and a dollop of Handy Corn from Ricks Picks (which you can only buy online).

Comments (Archived):

  1. Yule Heibel

    I’ve been making another lentil dish you posted a while back (Lentils and scallops, with the lentils being a separate dish) – made it last night, in fact. It’s really good, and, lo!, even my offspring scarf it up (o praise the whatevers). This one looks equally good, and I’ll have to try it soon!PS: That coffee cake recipe is another hit around here. I love everything about it except that it must be 3000 calories per serving. But who cares – it’s delicious! 😉

    1. Gotham Gal

      Ha!! It probably is 3000 calories a serving but who is counting.joanne [email protected]

  2. Amagansett Mama

    LOVE Rick’s Handy Corn!

  3. casacara

    Oh, that’s what it was – scrumptious! Meant to ask but never got around to it. A belated official thanks, by the way, for having me. The strawberry jam went down well, too;-)

    1. Gotham Gal

      Glad you enjoyed it!

  4. joeagliozzo

    Off topic, but wanted to let you know that we just returned from Paris and happily employed many of the recommendations I gleaned from your blog posts last year when your family was there. I commented on Fred’s blog also about this and remarked that “there must be a biz opportunity in there somewhere” – he said you felt likewise!With TravelAdvisor apparently becoming easier to spam/manipulate it seems there is an opportunity to build trusted recommendation networks on the foundation of blogs/twitter. I know as a member of a family that doesn’t get to vacation that often, we hate getting into a situation we are not happy with when it is too late to do anything about it, so good recommendations are key!I also think 2 star and lower hotels may have drastically fewer customers in the future, as vacation rental by owner properties will become more popular with those on a budget. We canceled a hotel in Nice when we found a much larger, nicer apartment right on the Promenade des Anglais for less money. There will probably be additional opportunities to provide services to these types of properties – occasional made service, tech support (the property manager had no idea how to fix the cable router/wireless ap in our apartment, I ended up fixing it for him), etc.Anyway- thanks again for the reviews on your blog! I would like to do some work on this referral idea, but not sure I can get to it – most of my work is in renewable energy right now, but you never know, it is such an interesting opportunity!

    1. Gotham Gal

      Glad you enjoyed Paris and all our recommendations.There is definitely some type of opportunity there but what is certainly thequestion and how you make money off of it. I have always said, there mustbe a biz opportunity in there somewhere, too. At present, I’m just going tocontinue giving out the info because I love to.

      1. joeagliozzo

        I think whatever the biz model is, what you said will be the key “people giving out the info because they love to”. Probably some kind of curate and aggregate service covering blogs and twitter message (and other social media), but scaling to cover a sufficient number of destinations to be relevant will probably be the hard part, I would think.. I think “how you make money off it” is the easier part – all travel sites with sufficient traffic make money, in my experience, and there is a fairly direct link between the content (reviews) and a transaction (the rental) – at least for lodging. Restaurants are probably a bit harder though..

  5. Limabean NJ

    Hi, are you using fresh lentils or can? thanks – I have a great black bean salad, that is easy and it a hit everytime. The great thing about this receipe is the amount of ingredients is completely up to your taste – so it will never be bad !!2 big cans black beans, can corn, peppers (red and green), scallions, garlic, onions. salt, pepper, paprika, some oil…red wine vinegar (I use a lot), jalepenos (depending on taste) and HONEY is the key – you get this hot, sweet spicey taste….don’t make the dressing too soggy for the veggies. hmmm, serve with grilled meat !!

    1. Gotham Gal

      Dried lentils.Black bean salad sounds nice.