A few months ago I started an affair, the passion of which shows no sign of fading. My partner is the lentil, a sassy little pulse delicious in any incarnation, be it brown or green or red. Don’t get me wrong; it’s not that I’ve discovered the lentil only recently. We’ve been acquainted for years. It’s more like growing up and suddenly realizing that your childhood friend is hot as hell and you are, in fact, in love with them. So yes, my lentils, I love you.
I suppose that the big revelation came when I made salmon and lentils for myself a month or so ago, with the lentils dressed in a mustard and lemon butter. It was pure sex, so much so that I insisted on making it for my friends (which led to what I like to call ‘LentilQuest 2010’ — a tumultuous traipsing around Rockville, Maryland to find the perfect lentil). Despite having gorged myself on fried pickles at Hooters, which is a story for another time, I cleaned my plate — a rare occurrence for moi.
In any case, I eat lentils on an almost daily basis, either prepared simply, or jazzed up in some fashion. Yesterday, for example, I decided to have lentils for breakfast, and since Matt and I love Indian flavors (nothing is better than garam masala, dudes), the following recipe was born. You can serve the lentils alone, but I cannot imagine anything better than a fried egg on top, with the yolk oozing down…