Veggie "mince" curry

This is a veggie take on a curry my mum used to make when we were young. It was a pure comfort dish on a cold winter evening, especially with lots of brown rice and some mango chutney. But it was made with minced beef and I wanted to find a way of replicating this dish as we moved away from eating meat.

I tried to make this with lentils once or twice before but the taste wasn't as satisfactory as minced beef had been. When I discovered cooking lentils in red wine and soy sauce it completely changed things. This gives lentils a great full bodied "meaty" taste. I am always trying to get our daughter to taste new foods and she really went for lentils cooked like this.

I usually cook a big batch of lentils ahead of time, just doubling the weight given for the lentils below (so 200g) and keep the liquid amounts the same as given. I keep back half of the cooked lentils, pop in the fridge for about 5 days or freeze, and use in perhaps a bolognese sauce at a later stage.

The beauty of this recipe is that often we have all the ingredients needed in our cupboards so it's a really good one for using up some stuff before grocery day.

Serves 4

Ingredients

1. 100g dried puy lentils
2. 500ml water
3. 250ml red wine
4. 60ml tamari
5. 1 large onion
6. 1 medium carrot
7. 3 celery stalks
8. 3 heaped tablespoons of frozen peas
9. 1 tablespoon of rapeseed oil
10. 1 heaped tablespoon of curry powder
11. 1 tablespoon of tomato ketchup
12. 100ml water

Method

1. Place the puy lentils, the 250ml of water, red wine and tamari in a saucepan. Bring to the boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer for about 30 minutes until the lentils are soft and cooked through. Strain the lentils but reserve all the cooking liquid for use in the curry.
2. Wash the celery and carrot. Top and tail the carrot, there is no need to peel it. Chop the onion, carrot and celery into small bite size pieces.
3. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over a low heat. Add the onion, cover and allow to sweat for 5 minutes until translucent. Add the carrot, celery and frozen peas. Mix in the curry powder, cover and let the mixture sweat and infuse for a further 3 minutes.
4. Add the lentils, ketchup and stir well.
5. Pour over the reserved lentil cooking liquid and another 100ml of water. Bring to the boil before reducing to a low heat. Allow this to simmer for 25 minutes. The mixture will thicken and reduce a little. Check seasoning and add a little sea salt to suit your taste, remember it will already be quite salty from the tamari.
6. Serve with plenty of long grain brown rice and a dollop of mango chutney.