Approx cost: €3.50
Approx calories (per serving): ~350 (assuming everything is split between 4 persons)
Approx preparation time: 20 minutes
This is a great, fast dish. It’s light enough to serve on it’s own, on a bed of good, crisp lettuce or other salad, but can equally be part of something more solid – bulk it out with some good bread or some meat prepared in a similar style – bit of cumin, bit of chilli etc. Personally I love the taste of cumin so I’m always eager to use it in cooking, but you can really adjust the quantities below to your own preference, although bear in mind that removing the cumin altogether isn’t such a good plan. The quantity of oil and cayenne pepper can of course be modified – not everyone likes piquant food, and if you’re watching the calories then reducing the oil is a great way of shaving off a huge amount of excess calories.
Ingredients
– 1 x 800g can lentils
– ~150g / 1.5 cups small frozen prawns
– 2 medium-sized tomatoes
– 1 medium-sized onion
– ~1 green pepper
– 2 cloves of Garlic
– 0.1 litres / 0.5 cups Olive Oil + 1tbsp
– 2 tsps Cayenne Pepper
– 3 tsps Ground Cumin
– 2 tsps Ground Coriander
– Salt and Pepper
Instructions
- Chop the onion and tomato roughly and mince the garlic. If you can get your hands on spring onions (Scallions) these are even better and really give the salad an extra bit of zing, as well as making ir more colourful with the varying green and white slices of onion. Anyway, once the tomatoes and onion are chopped up you want to heat about half the olive oil in a pan and then throw in the onion. Fry for about 1 minute until slightly translucent and then add in the tomato. Cook again for another minute or so. The idea is purely to warm the tomato through – not to break it down into a sauce.
- Drain the lentils and pour in to the pan with the onion and tomato. Add in the spices and some salt and pepper and the rest of the oil, except the tablespoon. Mix around well and taste – add some more spices if you feel it’s necessary. Stir around for a couple more minutes on the heat to warm through and then remove from heat.
- Slice the green pepper into thin strips and heat up the tablespoon of olive oil on the stove in a new pan. Put the prawns (which are probably already cooked, if not then you’ll need to ensure they’re cooked before following this part of the recipe) and the pepper into the pan and fry for about 30 seconds to a minute. I like to add a bit more cumin in at this point because prawns and cumin together are just awesome! Cook until the pepper has wilted ever so slightly – it should still be crunchy and the prawns a slightly deeper pink.
- Plate up the prawns and the lentil salad. The lentils go really well when served in a leaf of crunchy lettuce. You can also serve with Tzatziki as the tastes go together really well.
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