Lentil Balls

I've never followed a recipe to make Lentil balls. The ingredients are approximate, and very flexible.

Lentil Balls

1 cup dark lentils (red or yellow lentils are too soft)

3-4 cloves of garlic

chunk of ginger

1 cup finely chopped onion

Optional: Finely chopped green or yellow peppers

Optional: Finely chopped mushroom

3-4 (or more) tablespoons of Catalina dressing

2-3 teaspoons Vegeta or other seasoning salt to taste

1 cup (or more) breadcrumbs

1/4 cup cooking oil

1/4 cup soy sauce + 1/4 cup water

• Put lentils in a saucepan, cover with 3 cups water.
• Boil the lentils for 15 minutes until they've expanded to about 3x their volume.
• Drain, but keep the liquid.
• Remove 1/3 of the lentils to a mixing bowl.
• Add peeled garlic and ginger to the saucepan.
• Blend to a fine sauce with a Wizzer (hand blender).
  • Add drained liquid as needed to get a texture like ketchup.
• Add lentil sauce to mixing bowl.
• Add chopped onion and optional veggies, Catalina dressing and Vegeta.
• Mix by hand, adding breadcrumbs.

The result should be a fairly dry mixture that hangs together form ping-pong sized balls. Too crumbly? Add more Catalina dressing or drained liquid. Too squishy? Add more breadcrumbs.

• Heat a frying pan to a really high temperature.
• Add cooking oil.
• Roll the lentil balls into the frying as if you're bowling (to ensure the oil coats the lentil balls)
• Cook for about 10 minutes, rolling the lentil balls regularly.

When the lentil balls have a nice brown crust:

• Add Soy sauce + water.
• Roll the lentil balls for 30 seconds, remove from heat.

Preparation time: 45 - 60 minutes, depending on how many lentil balls need to be formed. If there are many lentil ball makers it'll go faster!

The really nice thing when cooking lentil balls is that you can eat the mixture before frying. The better for cleaning utensils!

- --Bob.