Butternut squash with lentils and stuff for vegetarians

Butternut squash with lentils and stuff for vegetarians

If you’re not vegetarian, why cook vegetarian food? Because it’s good. And if you don’t find it good, at least it can help you make that vegetarian fall in love with you. This butternut squash is soft on the inside and crispy on the outside, yet low on fat. Served with green curry lentils and a yoghurt based sauce. Sounds like the healthiest thing ever!

butternut squash with lentils

Butternut squash

Ingredients

  • 1 butternut squash
  • 1 shallot
  • 1 garlic clove
  • Some cumin
  • cornstarch (or potato starch or any starch, wheat flour is ok)
  • 2 eggs
  • Panko breadcrumbs (normal bread crumbs are ok, but they don’t look as nice and the texture is different)
  • A couple of drizzles of olive oil
  • Salt and black pepper

Instructions

  1. Peel the squash
  2. Use a garlic press or grate the garlic into a bowl
  3. Drizzle some olive oil in there
  4. Add about three pinches of salt and two pinches of black pepper
  5. Cut the squash into large cubes and mix them all up in the bowl
  6. Onto a large oven tray
  7. Bake for about 20 minutes. They should be very firm, because you’ll bake them again
  8. Take them out and into a bowl. Get some starch on there, and shake the bowl around to cover the squash
  9. Beat the eggs in one bowl
  10. Panki in another bowl
  11. Dip the squash into the eggs and then the panko. Use one hand for the wet bowl, and the other hand for the dry bowl, or else you’ll make a mess
  12. Place on a grill tray, and into the oven for about 15 minutes on 200 degrees, until golden brown
  13. You’ll have a crispy crust and a soft inside! Try one!

raw butternut cubes

baked butternut squash

Baked butternut

Lentils

  • 1 shallots
  • 1 garlic clove
  • A teaspoon of kanyan curry
  • A good curry powder, I use a Kandyan curry mix
  • A tablespoon of tomato paste
  • A couple of drizzles of olive oil
  • 120 g of green lentils (About two dl)
  • A pinch of salt
  1. Basically, boil the lentils according to the packaging. I use a pressure cooker because it saves time, and it yields better results in general when it comes to cooking lentils in my opinion.
  2. Finely chop shallots and garlic
  3. Fry shallots and garlic in olive oil. Add the rest of the ingredients and fry for a while, then set aside.
  4. When the lentils are done, mix them with the curry stir fry
  5. This smells absolutely wonderful!

Sauce

  • 3 tablespoons of greek yoghurt
  • zest from 1/4 orange
  • juice from 1/2 orange
  • Pinch of salt
  • Handfull of coriander
  1. In a bowl, add yoghurt, zest, juice, salt and chopped coriander. Yep, that’s it.

Serve

Some lentils, the crispy nuggets, sauce, and a little coriander leaf on top to make it look all fancy. If you’re doing this vegan, you can substitute the eggs with soy yoghurt, and the greek yoghurt with… Well, soy yoghurt too.

butternut squash with lentils