This week’s Flavor Temptations dish was a spinach lentil stew.
If you’ve been following along, you know that I’ve also used their spice packets to make their rajmah masala and curried potato recipes this month. As a refresher or for those who are new here, Flavor Temptations is an ethnic spicery that is dedicated to teaching people how to cook delicious Indian food at home. You can find their products in Madison grocery stores or online, and with it you receive an authentic Indian recipe.
This dish came with almost everything you need already included in the packet. I picked up some spinach and tomato paste from the store and was ready to get cooking.
To be honest, I found the directions on this recipe to be slightly confusing and ended up reading it multiple times before starting, but the actual cooking is easy. One of the reasons that Sara, the owner of Flavor Temptations, is having people test the recipes is to identify this exact thing, so the product will only get better.
This spinach lentil stew dish is an excellent light dinner, which is exactly what we were looking for the night we made it (we’d been snacking on left over carrot almond cake all day, ooops). A piece of naan is the perfect accompaniment to soak in the spices and mop up the last of the stew from the bowl.
If you’ve always been intimidated by cooking Indian food at home, you should absolutely check out Flavor Temptation’s website. They make it easy to make authentic Indian dishes without the need of extensive knowledge about spices and technique. Three dishes down and I’m still equally excited for our last dish, chana masala, next week!
- 1 Spinach Lentil Stew packet from Flavor Temptations
- 5 oz frozen or fresh spinach
- ½ tablespoon cooking oil
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ tablespoon tomato paste
- If using frozen spinach, microwave it with ½ cup of water for 10 minutes.
- Meanwhile, wash split green gram lentils. In a heavy pot, add lentils, turmeric powder, a drop of oil, and 1 cup water. Cook for 15 minutes on medium heat.
- Add in spinach, red chili powder, salt, tomato paste and ½ cup water. Stir and cook covered on low heat for 10 minutes, stirring every 3-4 minutes.
- Puree half the cooked spinach and return it to the pot. Add ¼ cup water and cook for an additional 5-7 minutes on medium heat, stirring occasionally.
- To make the garnish, in a small skillet, heat oil on medium heat. Sputter mustard seeds, then lower heat and add Cheyenne pepper, asafetida, and split black gram lentils. Fry for 1 minute until golden brown.
- Pour garnish over stew and serve hot.
I don’t think I have seen an Indian stew look this good ever! You can definitely consider that I will be recreating the recipe.. thanks for sharing it. Pinned!
writes Thalia @ butter and briocheThanks Thalia!
writes Vicky[…] along, you’ve seen me test Fill My Recipe’s rajmah masala, curried potatoes, and spinach lentil stew throughout the last […]
writes Chana Masala {Indian Chickpea Dish} and Cooking With Fill My Recipe - Things I Made TodayI’m drooling looking at the stew. I’ll have to stop at HYVee to pick this one up!
writes Cheryl CavallierGo now, since it’s still winter, you may as well enjoy some stews :)
writes Vicky