Hello. Thank you, as ever for your recipes here. I'd love to make this fully vegetarian, but I'm a bit puzzled as to weight of lentils and volume of water. If I replace the lamb with lentils, I'll end up with 800g of lentils but only 600ml of water, which feels like it will all go wrong. The original recipe has 300g of lentils and 600ml of water, so the double volume of liquid, as your books have trained me to use when cooking pulses. Also, if it's only lentils, is the cooking time the same? I'd expect the lentils to be thoroughly overcooked in 8 minutes. I'd really appreciate just a quick response with weight of lentils, volume of water and cooking time if doing a vegetarian option. Many thanks!
First of all, re the cooking time. The cooking time in the original version takes into account how long the lentils take to cook, not the lamb. The cooking time is longer because the lentils are being cooked with tomatoes and tomato puree which act as inhibitors and slow down the speed at which the lentils will cook. There is a big difference in timings between lentils cooked in salted water with maybe aromatics, to lentils cooked down like this. Lentils also tend to cook faster in more water - and part of that is taking into account the cooker taking longer to come up to pressure, but also because they have faster access to the water.
Re weight of lentils to replace the lamb. Remember that when you cook meat, you lose weight/volume. The lamb will lose a lot of fat (around 20% of it is fat which will render out, just leaving meat solids behind) and water. Whereas with lentils, you are increasing the weight/volume when you cook them, because they absorb the water. So to get the equivalent of 500g raw lamb, I would only want to increase the dry uncooked lentils by around 150g. You could round it up to 500g in total if you wanted to. Then I would increase the water to 750ml. That is being generous - don't forget that there is plenty of liquid in the tomatoes and the vegetables which all contribute.
I hope that answers everything! I've tried to be thorough just so you see my reasoning!
That’s brilliant, thank you so much! I don’t cook meat, so your explanation is helpful in this instance and will help me think about how to convert other recipes, too. Much appreciated.
Hello. Thank you, as ever for your recipes here. I'd love to make this fully vegetarian, but I'm a bit puzzled as to weight of lentils and volume of water. If I replace the lamb with lentils, I'll end up with 800g of lentils but only 600ml of water, which feels like it will all go wrong. The original recipe has 300g of lentils and 600ml of water, so the double volume of liquid, as your books have trained me to use when cooking pulses. Also, if it's only lentils, is the cooking time the same? I'd expect the lentils to be thoroughly overcooked in 8 minutes. I'd really appreciate just a quick response with weight of lentils, volume of water and cooking time if doing a vegetarian option. Many thanks!
Hi Bronwyn -
First of all, re the cooking time. The cooking time in the original version takes into account how long the lentils take to cook, not the lamb. The cooking time is longer because the lentils are being cooked with tomatoes and tomato puree which act as inhibitors and slow down the speed at which the lentils will cook. There is a big difference in timings between lentils cooked in salted water with maybe aromatics, to lentils cooked down like this. Lentils also tend to cook faster in more water - and part of that is taking into account the cooker taking longer to come up to pressure, but also because they have faster access to the water.
Re weight of lentils to replace the lamb. Remember that when you cook meat, you lose weight/volume. The lamb will lose a lot of fat (around 20% of it is fat which will render out, just leaving meat solids behind) and water. Whereas with lentils, you are increasing the weight/volume when you cook them, because they absorb the water. So to get the equivalent of 500g raw lamb, I would only want to increase the dry uncooked lentils by around 150g. You could round it up to 500g in total if you wanted to. Then I would increase the water to 750ml. That is being generous - don't forget that there is plenty of liquid in the tomatoes and the vegetables which all contribute.
I hope that answers everything! I've tried to be thorough just so you see my reasoning!
That’s brilliant, thank you so much! I don’t cook meat, so your explanation is helpful in this instance and will help me think about how to convert other recipes, too. Much appreciated.
Such a great photo! And yes thank heavens to a little sunshine
Thank you! Pure luck. And we’re heading for colder again soon so making the most of today. 5 miles this morning!
Yum! Definitely going to be trying this, delicious and soooo practical - thank you Catherine. Also great to hear you’re managing to get out more X
Thanks Chloe!