Lentils are one of the best sources of iron (as well as protein) for vegetarians. They provide all sorts of nutrients and are supposed to be especially good for diabetics and those with high blood cholesterol.
There are four standard colours of lentils:
- Green
- Red
- Yellow
- Brown
The colours form a time till mush scale, green staying solid for a long time and brown being best as a thickener. Many recipes call for multiple colours in order to provide complexity of textures. If you're only able to stock one colour, stock green as it is easy to make lentils softer but impossible to go the other way.
There can be up to five steps in the standard preparation of lentils:
- 1. Sorting
- Spread your lentils out and look through them, remove any that are ill-formed or even non-lentils (rocks are the most common foreign object, although you probably won't find any unless you get your lentils somewhere authentic).
- 2. Washing
- Place your lentils in a bowl (I usually use a large measuring cup) and add enough water to cover by a few centimeters. Take a large spoon and stir. Once the water is cloudy, pour off as much water as possible (without losing any lentils) and repeat.
- 3. Soaking (optional)
- Using the same bowl as you washed them in, put in as much water as you'd be happy having the lentils absorb. Leave them for as long as you want (they've absorbed a bit of water during washing but they can absorb much more) and then pour the water off.
- 4. Frying (optional)
- Whether you're using them in a soup or cooking as a preparation for some other recipe, you can fry the lentils in some vegetable oil before adding liquid. Smell them, it's an interesting aroma. When making soup I usually put green lentils in somewhere between the onions and carrots.
- 5. Boiling / Simmering
- Cook until soft. If you're just cooking lentils, you might as well boil them fairly hard. But if you're making a soup you should keep in mind that green lentils can take more punishment than most other legumes (30 minute simmering, minimum). Undercooked lentils don't seem so bad to taste, but they're more pleasant to eat when soft.
Depending on the amount of time you soak, fry, and boil your lentils, you can control the consistency of the final product. When making soup or other recipes, you should think about what level of homogeneity you'd like from your lentils. Using a combination of colour choice and preparation you can achieve a gentle balance.
I do not have the experience to offer exact cooking times. Also, does anyone have experience eating sprouted lentils?