Hello from a cruising altitude of thirty-one thousand feet—I’m en route to the midwest for a brief twenty-four hours, marveling at the blanket of pristine white clouds below me. I’ve always loved flying, and today is no exception. Careening through the vast blue reminds me that anything is possible, even shoving humans into a metal tube and thrusting them thousands of miles up into the sky. What a world.
Today is not about flying, though—it’s about another kind of miracle, the kind that involves devoting thousands of hours of heart and vision and sweat and fear and hope and, yes, tears, to writing (and recipe testing, and styling, and photographing, and editing) a book. It’s about these incredible coconut curry lentils from the new book Pretty Simple Cooking: 100 Delicious Vegetarian Recipes to Make You Fall in Love with Real Food. My friends Sonja and Alex Overhiser of the site and podcast A Couple Cooks have poured themselves into this beautiful cookbook with a force of love and pure inspiration that is communicated on every page.
Pretty Simple Cooking seamlessly integrates easy, delicious recipes, stunning photographs, and gorgeous illustrations from Not Without Salt’s Ashley Rodriguez with words of wisdom from Sonja and Alex alongside luminaries like Julia Child, Michael Pollan, and Alice Waters. The book’s structure centers around ten lessons Sonja and Alex learned while teaching themselves to cook, from slowing down and loving the (creative) process to facing your fear, respecting the ingredients, and having fun.
What I can’t convey to you here is the warmth that radiates from each of these lessons—they are lighthouses for those lost and lonely souls who have struggled to find ease and meaning in the kitchen. From the start, Pretty Simple Cooking feels like a hand to hold in the midst of cooking chaos, and the broader chaos of life. The book’s lessons, its clarity, and the feeling of empowerment that rises from each page is remarkable.
And the recipes—the recipes! This is a book to meal-plan from, to grab late-night when you want a bangin’ snack, to explore when you’re thinking of trying a new dish for a dinner party: baked goat cheese with tomato sauce, cornbread pancakes with strawberry jam, delicata squash fries with awesome sauce, chickpea shawarma flatbread, Santorini bowls, falafel burgers with yogurt dill sauce, a dark chocolate sea salt skillet cookie, and yes, this red lentil coconut curry. Give it all to me.
I decided to start with these lentils because not only am I a huge fan of bowl food, I’m an even bigger fan of mush. Before you hang your head in dismay at my utterly infantile gustatory preferences, let me make my case. Is there anything more comforting than a bowl of delicious, perfectly warm food that requires minimal incisor action? This is food that’s made for easy, cozy nights. This is food you can trust. It’s not going to sneak up on you with hard angles or sharp edges. It’s food that wants to be your best friend, that wants to hold your hand and whisper kind words to you. Like these coconut curry lentils with cilantro chutney.
The marriage of pungent flavors here—Thai red curry, fresh ginger and garlic, sweet and tangy tomatoes, herbaceous cilantro, and the creaminess of coconut milk—is all you could ask for in a bowl. The dish fuses Indian and Thai style curries in a surprising yet delicious move, one I wish I’d thought of long ago. When I tasted the lentils in their final moments on the stove, I just about swooned. I can’t get enough of them.
The cilantro chutney—an easy blender mix of fresh cilantro, onion, golden raisins, vinegar, olive oil, water, and sea salt—is a revelation. In the past I’ve only ever made cooked chutneys, but the body, heft, and sweetness of the raisins and the bracing acid of the vinegar are transformative here. I’ll be making this for many years to come.
I topped my curry and rice with a few spoonfuls of coconut milk in addition to the chutney—you might like it, too.
Enjoy the lentils, and make sure to grab your own copy of Pretty Simple Cooking: 100 Delicious Vegetarian Recipes to Make You Fall in Love with Real Food—I’m not sharing mine!
Red Lentil Coconut Curry with Cilantro Chutney
Ingredients
FOR THE CURRY
- 4-6 cups cooked brown basmati rice
- 1 medium yellow onion
- 3 medium garlic cloves
- 1 3- inch nub fresh ginger
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 cup red lentils
- 1 cup canned crushed tomatoes
- 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons full-fat coconut milk divided (plus more for topping)
- 1/4 cup red curry paste*
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 4-5 cups baby spinach leaves packed (chopped if leaves are large)
FOR THE CHUTNEY
- 1 ⁄4 cup diced yellow onion reserved from above
- 2 cups packed cilantro leaves and tender stems
- 1 ⁄4 cup chopped golden raisins
- 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 ⁄2 teaspoon kosher salt
Instructions
- Make the brown rice according to directions.
- Make the curry: Peel and dice the onion. Reserve 1⁄4 cup for the chutney and set aside; use the remaining portion for the curry. Peel and mince the garlic. Peel and mince the ginger and measure out 2 tablespoons. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat, then add the onion and sauté until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and ginger and sauté for 1 minute.
- Add the lentils, tomatoes, 1 cup coconut milk, 2 cups water, red curry paste, tomato paste, and kosher salt. Bring to a simmer and cook very gently, just barely bubbling, for 10 to 15 minutes until the lentils are soft (if not, cook a few minutes more until tender). Stir in the spinach along with 2 tablespoons coconut milk and cook until the leaves wilt. Taste and add additional kosher salt or coconut milk to taste.
- Make the chutney: Meanwhile, make the chutney using an immersion blender or standard blender to blend the reserved 1⁄4 cup diced onion, cilantro, golden raisins, white wine vinegar, olive oil, kosher salt, and 1⁄4 cup water. Blend into a thick, smooth sauce.
- To serve, spoon the lentils over rice and top with a dollop of chutney and a spoonful of coconut milk.
Notes
