How To Cook Lentils

Hi there! I'm Matt from the underground cookery school. And today I'm going to do a video cookery lesson for you. So today I'm going to show you how to cook lentils.

I've actually got red lentils here but it's the same recipe if you were doing green lentils. The idea is I'm going to cook one portion, so about 40 grams will feed one person. They go straight into a pan and what I'm going to do now over here is just cover them with water, my advice for this quantity is maybe have an inch extra water an what will happen is the lentils will come up to a boil they'll carry on cooking for anything between 10-12 minutes, maybe a little bit longer but for my yummy beans.

The best way to establish the best cooking time is just tasting them as you go along and as soon as you've got that softness they're ready. What we'll then do is we'll take sieve and pass them through, plate them up with a bit of olive oil and we'll then discuss the best usage for them. So were going to come back in about 10, 12 minutes and finish the job off.

Right, I'm happy with the texture though having tasted. They've been on for about 12 minutes, so as promised it's just simply a question of passing the lentils through a sieve. And now I'm simply going to plate up.

Lentils can be used in a number of dishes; I always think on their own their great. You can stuff them in a mushroom, even an artichoke. They're great for thickening soup.

A little drizzle of olive oil in there. That is how to cook lentils.