A watercolour of a bowl of thick orange carrot and lentil mash with a drizzle of spiced oil
Generated with OpenAI gpt-image-1
Adapted from Indian-style carrot and lentil purées, in the form that needs no blender

Curried carrot and lentil mash

An established dish converted to shelf-stable ingredients. Every substitution is documented below.

How long it keeps

About 6 months, set by Vegetable oil (sunflower or rapeseed).

Indicative, for planning a build before you buy. The answer for a pack you already own is the best before date printed on it, and that only holds if it has been stored as the label says.

Serves
3
Burners
1
Pans
1
Water
0.6 L
Active
8 min
Total
28 min

Ingredients

Thick enough to eat with flatbread rather than a spoon, sweet from the carrots and warm rather than hot from the curry powder. Good cold the same day, which makes it useful as much as pleasant.

  1. Rinse the lentils. Into the pan with 450 ml of water. Simmer 20 minutes until collapsed.
  2. Separately (or in a mug) heat the oil, dried onion for two minutes, then curry powder and ginger for thirty seconds.
  3. Drained carrots into the lentils, crushed with a fork against the pan. Leave it coarse; this is a mash, not a purée.
  4. The spiced oil tipped in, salt, lemon juice off the heat.

Serves 3 as a side or a dip, 2 with flatbread as a meal.

What this was adapted from

Indian-style carrot and lentil purées, in the form that needs no blender

  • fresh carrots roasted then blended → tinned carrots crushed with a fork

    Roasting builds sweetness through caramelisation and needs an oven. Tinned carrots are already sweet and soft enough to crush by hand, so the dish gets there by a different route -- flatter, less caramelised, and available in fifteen minutes on one ring.