23/10/2020

Red Lentil Fritters

(or are they actually burgers 🤔)

So we’re going back to my childhood again. Well… maybe not childhood. My mom really wanted to cook nice food for various vegetarian (girl)friends that me and my brothers started bringing home at some point. And nice food to my mom meant no store bought, ready made stuff, no short-cuts, no I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-meat… stuff. You know? Real stuff.

I have no idea where she got these ones from, or if they’re something she more or less came up with herself, but they became a real staple food at home. The base is red lentils but I think what give them their defining character is rather the mix of root vegetables that result in a sweet, earthy taste which I became really fond of.

What’s a bit weird is that despite making them regularly for, well, fucking twenty years, I’ve never really settled on a pairing. Sometimes, it’s roasted potatoes with bearnaise sauce. Other times it’s the wonderfully Swedish “stuvade makaroner”, i.e. macaroni boiled in milk, or perhaps mashed potatoes with browned butter. So you know, throw em in somewhere and see how it feels.

That’s at least what I’m (still) doing (seriously..? Twenty years? TWENTY?! Well. I’m old I guess).

1 hour About 10 burgers

Ingredients

130 gred lentils
130 gyellow onion (1 normal sized onion)
130 gcarrot (1 big or 2 smalls carrots)
80 gparsnip (1)
4 eggs
30 gpanko (plus som for coating the burgers before frying)
Some salt, pepper and whatever you like in stuff
A dollop of tomato puré and/or mustard if you're feeling fancy

Directions

Making these ones are ridiculously easy. The only thing to really learn is how the consistency should feel to make the burgers keep their shape, but not be too compact when fried in the pan. I’ve included pictures and a video to help but as ever, practice makes perfect.

Boil the lentils (130 g) in salted water (or if you like, broth) until they’re soft
Finely chop the onion(s)(130 g) and finely grate the carrot(s)(130 g) and the parsnip(s)(80 g). Squeeze some of the water from the grated carrot. Then put everything in a bowl.
Add the boiled lentils (not the water of course), then mix the eggs in. Finally add the panko (dried bread crumbs), some salt and black pepper and stir everything together. It should look something like this:
If you have the time, let it set for a while in the fridge (overnight is also fine if you end up with un-fried left-overs), this helps with consistency. Make an oversized golfball of burger-mix in your hand and dump it in a bowl of panko/ dried bread crumbs. Cover it with crumbs and place it in a pan with medium hot oil, then gently press down on it with a spatula to make a burger. Fry for 2-3 minutes before flipping. Naturally, you can prepare several breaded over-sized golf balls before putting any in the pan.

Obviously these can be endlessly added to and experimented with, but I wanted to give you the base, the original, first.

I often add feta cheese, fresh herbs (thyme is a good one), as mentioned in the list of ingredients but not in the instructions; mustard and/or tomato puré

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