Vegan Storecupboard With bulgur

Green lentil stew

Name: Green lentil stew
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 65 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Central Anatolia
Ingredients: 300 g Green lentils; 1 pcs Onion; 2 cloves Garlic; 4 tbsp Olive oil; 1 tbsp Tomato paste; 1 litre Water; 100 g Coarse bulgur; 1 tsp Chilli flakes; 1 tsp Dried mint; 8 g Salt

A green lentil keeps its skin and holds its shape; a red one is already skinned and split, so it collapses. The same plant, two different dishes.

Pulses · Central Anatolia · Budget · One pot · Vegan · Weekend batch · Freezes well

65 minTime

496Kcal / serving

1983Total kcal

Preparation: 10 min
Cooking: 45 min
Resting: 10 min
Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Very cheap
Season: Autumn, Winter

Where this dish comes from

The difference between red lentil soup and a green lentil stew is not in the method but in the seed. Red lentils are sold skinned and split: the moment they meet water the starch is free and in fifteen minutes they are a purée. A green lentil is whole and still in its coat, and that coat behaves like a membrane, holding the seed together for thirty minutes. In Anatolia both are called mercimek, but one is drunk with a spoon and the other eaten with a fork.

Method

Before the heat goes on

Rinse the lentils and throw away any that float: those are the hollow ones.
No soaking is needed: green lentils cook in thirty minutes.

You will need: A pan with a lid

Rinse the lentils and skim off any that float.

Look for The rinsing water should run clear.

Why A lentil that floats is hollow or has been got at by weevils: its density has dropped below water’s. That is also why it cooks at a different rate from the rest.
Soften the onion and garlic in the oil until they take colour, then fry the tomato paste in for a minute.

Look for The paste should turn deep brick and the oil separate at the edge.

Why A minute in the pan takes the raw edge off the paste. Here the paste going in early does no harm: a lentil’s coat does not depend on pectin the way a chickpea’s or a bean’s does, and acid does not hold it back to any noticeable degree.

Starch gelatinised The granules soaked up water, swelled and burst into a network. It has thickened, and it will firm further as it cools. no way back

Maillard is running Amino acids have met reducing sugars. The crust, the roasted flavour and that smell all come from here. no way back

Too much starch. It will set into a rubbery gel once cool — add more liquid.
Add the lentils and the water and boil twenty-eight to thirty-two minutes with the lid ajar.

Look for The seeds should stay whole and give a little resistance when crushed between the fingers.

Why A hard boil tears the coats mechanically and the stew turns into soup: the difference here is physical rather than chemical. A surface with bubbles rising slowly is all that is wanted.

If it went wrong

Once the lentils start collapsing there is no way back: put the bulgur in early, cook ten minutes more, and serve it as a bulgur pilaf with lentils rather than as a stew. Nobody will be any the wiser.

Starch gelatinised The granules soaked up water, swelled and burst into a network. It has thickened, and it will firm further as it cools. no way back
Add the bulgur, salt, chilli and mint, turn the heat off and leave it covered for ten minutes.

Look for After ten minutes there should be no free water on the surface; a spoon should not stand up in it but should leave a wet trail.

Why Bulgur is wheat that has already been boiled and dried: it does not need cooking, it needs to take up water, and it does that at 80 °C under a lid. Left over the flame the same exchange shows up as a pan boiling over and a scorched bottom.

Starch gelatinised The granules soaked up water, swelled and burst into a network. It has thickened, and it will firm further as it cools. no way back

A gluten web is forming Gliadin and glutenin hydrated into an elastic net. This is what will hold the gas. no way back

Salt · 0.49% Low. Everything reads flat and nothing steps forward.

Too much starch. It will set into a rubbery gel once cool — add more liquid.

What the model could follow

This recipe was run through the engine step by step — what goes in when, and at what temperature and for how long. The reactions above come from that run.

peak 150 °C · 50 minutes · engine 1.0.0 · confidence low

Servings

4

Ingredients

300 g Green lentils
1 pcs Onion
2 cloves Garlic
4 tbsp Olive oil
1 tbsp Tomato paste
1 litre Water
100 g Coarse bulgur
1 tsp Chilli flakes
1 tsp Dried mint
8 g Salt

What did you think

Who is eating

Everyone A baby under one Pregnant A child An athlete

The 1 rules we hold for this group did not fire for this dish. That does not mean the dish is suitable for them; it means those particular rules did not apply.

Not about the dish — about the person

Salt in a day

5 g 2000 mg

An adult Context established

Under 5 g of salt a day, which is under 2000 mg of sodium — just under a teaspoon. A label usually gives sodium, and the two are not the same number: salt is about 2.5 times the sodium.

World Health Organization, Salt reduction

Free sugars

10%

Strong recommendation — adults and children Context established

The same share for adults and for children. Ten per cent of a 2000-calorie day is roughly 50 g of sugar, and a single can of a fizzy drink is more than half of it. The risk of weight gain, obesity and tooth decay rises above this line.

World Health Organization, Information note about intake of sugars recommended in the WHO guideline for adults and children, 2015

What is done, and what is not: With somebody pregnant at the table, unpasteurised milk and cheeses come out of every suggestion, the salt threshold is held at the adult figure and the free-sugar one is applied strictly — all three sourced, all three in "Sources and method". That much happens on its own and you do not have to remember it. On caffeine, fish and mercury, iron and folate this site has no source; do not read them here, ask the doctor following the pregnancy. The difference between those two sentences is the point: the first is done, the second is not.

This choice is not stored anywhere.

Diets

Gluten-free Suitable with a substitution Coarse bulgur Instead: Coarse bulgur → Rice
Vegan Suitable as it is
Vegetarian Suitable as it is
Lactose-free Suitable as it is
Diabetes-friendly It depends

This verdict comes from the recipe\u2019s own ingredient list. The label on a packaged ingredient is always the last word.

What a swap costs

Coarse bulgur → Rice Stops happening: A gluten web is forming +4 kcal · -0.3 g fat · -0.4 g protein

Computed weight for weight. A ratio per pair would be better, and there is no sourced table of them, so the assumption is stated rather than hidden.

Calculated nutrition

495.7 kcal
21.5 g Protein
70.5 g Carbohydrate
15.1 g Fat
10.7 g Fibre

Per serving, computed from raw weights as bought. Cooking drives water off and sometimes adds fat, and neither is accounted for.

composition figures unsourced · held in the system

After the heat goes off

Serving

Hot, with a spoon of yoghurt and lemon over it, and pickles beside.

Keeping · 4 days

Four days in the fridge; it thickens by the second day as the bulgur goes on taking up water.

Cooling and reheating

Eight minutes over a low flame with half a glass of water added.

Freezes

Three months. With the bulgur in it goes a little soft in the freezer; adding the bulgur after thawing gives a better result.

What is left

The next day it presses into patties for the pan, or a ladle of water turns it into soup.

For a child

Lentils are valuable for iron and protein and this dish crushes easily with a fork. For 12–36 months put the chilli on at the table and lift their share before the salt. Suitable mashed for a baby from eight months; the coats carry fibre, so start small.

Around training

With the bulgur it comes close to a complete amino acid profile — the lentil brings lysine, the wheat methionine. A portion carries about 18 g of protein.

If you have not got it

Coarse bulgur → Rice Rice works, but takes the water up faster: leave it fifteen minutes under the lid rather than ten.
Green lentils (dry) → Black-eyed peas (dry) Black-eyed peas also keep their coats and cook in the same time; the taste is sweeter.

Where to go from here

Boiling & poaching The method this recipe rests on
Green lentils (dry) What it does in heat, water and acid
Bulb onion What it does in heat, water and acid
Coarse bulgur What it does in heat, water and acid
Red lentil patties Similar method, or something that sits on the same table
Black-eyed pea stew Similar method, or something that sits on the same table
Chickpea stew Similar method, or something that sits on the same table
Budget Other recipes that answer the same need
One pot Other recipes that answer the same need
Vegan Other recipes that answer the same need
Weekend batch Other recipes that answer the same need
Freezes well Other recipes that answer the same need

Taste profile

What it tastes like

No axis sits clearly above the average: a balanced recipe.

Sweet 14
Salty 9
Sour 3
Bitter 14
Umami 20
Heat 10
Richness 17
Aroma 29

This profile is computed rather than measured: the role-weighted average of its ingredients’ taste vectors, shifted by what the cooking does. The thin line is the database average on that axis.

Computed similarity