The one thing I learned in culinary school about vegan food, other than a not so great vegan aioli, was this lentil fritters recipe.
As with everything, I changed a bit the recipe (the original fritter were deep fried, which is a big no-no for me), but they still taste great and this version is much healthier.
It’s a fairly simple recipe, but it needs a little planning, as the lentils need to be soaked, otherwise they can’t be processed. But once this step is done, everything else takes less than 15 minutes to make, plus oven time.
I used red lentils, but green lentils also work. The only difference is that you will need to soak it a little longer, but the taste and texture are very similar.
Lentil Fritters
Equipment
- Food processor
Ingredients
- 1 cup red lentils
- 1 cup water
- 1½ tsp salt
- 1 medium onion
- 4 tsp fresh ginger grated
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- ½ tsp ground cardamom
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp ground allspice
- 10 sprigs cilantro, parsley or mint
- ¼ cup almonds, pine nuts or sunflower seeds
Instructions
- Soak the lentils in water for an hour. After this time, drain the remaining water.
- While you wait for the lentils, roughly chop the onion and grate the ginger (since it's processed, sometimes I just roughly chop it).
- Finely chop the parsley (that's what I used in this recipe, but I've already done it with cilantro or mint and it tastes great either way) and roughly chop the nuts. I like to use sunflower seeds because they are much cheaper and I usually have a lot at home.
- In a food processor, add the drained lentils, the onion, the ginger and the spices.
- Fold in the chopped parsley and sunflower seeds.
- Either make small balls or lay it flat on a baking tray.
- Bake it at 175ºC (350ºF) for about 35 minutes.
- You can serve it as an appetizer, with a nice dip, or eat it as a meat substitute if you are vegetarian or vegan. Either way, you're in for a treat with this recipe.
