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Mung Bean and Green Lentil Stew w/ Tofu Plus Salad Greens & Tangy Orange, Olive Oil Dressing

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Nature is flourishing wildly all over New York and I’m flushed with excitement trying to keep up with it. It seems as if both the earth and I are ferociously making up for the brutal winter. I’ve been collecting herbs and flowers to make infusions to throw into spiked, fresh-squeezed lemonades (recipe to come). I’ve been raiding farmers markets to devour fruits and vegetables as fresh as can be and staring at the sea. And in doing so I feel a shift in me. A melting of a wall. A flash of electricity. A loosening of the reigns. And it’s lovely.

July 4th symbolizes the start of summer for me and it came with a gift in the form of a box of vegetables and herbs from my friend’s garden. Arugula, peas, kale, zucchini, lavender, cilantro, dill, basil, borage flowers and leaves–said to gladden the heart. She also picked her onions and turnips prematurely for me, but they are packed with flavor. Along with this, the next day, a different friend of mine who found out that I like to cook, gave me a bottle of olive oil brought home from her small olive grove in the south of France. Oh to be French and own an olive grove. Wistful sigh. These gifts made this city dweller a very happy camper. With a twinkle in my eye and a shudder of delight, I started planning menus from drinks, pestos, appetizers to dessert with these wonderful time-sensitive gifts. The first thing I did was recreate the salad that my friend made from her garden and the dressing, which combines fresh orange juice with the fresh olive oil and a hint of pepper and balsamic vinegar for a tangy punch. It was so good, I ended up taking the spoon straight to the jar and eating it plain after I coated the salad in it. I’ve got recipes lined up for in between bike rides, World Cup games and just sitting outside drinking. I’m hoping to get them up here ASAP so the bounty of summer can be splashed all over this page in the same way it casts its light over all of us.

A little about this stew.  Being from South India, our friends welcomed us into their kitchen and let us taste all of the wonderful things they had brewing, from sambar to fermented rice dumplings. Among their cabinets were mung beans, which rise to the level of sacred to my friend, and puy, French lentils, which I’ve been meaning to find, but hadn’t gotten around to it. Of course, me being me, I sprung into action to make something I’ve been hoping to make for a while. Using the forethought that I cultivated while preserving my lemons (which are so so ready! Add to list…) I soaked the mung beans while at work in order to have a quick, edible dinner later. Boil some vegetable broth, add the beans, the lentils, some spices, coconut milk and fresh veggies from your garden and you’ve got a wonderful, cleansing and filling meal, earthy and redolent with spice. I added tofu for heft and texture, but feel free to leave it out.

Happy summer to all who live in this part of the world. And even to those who don’t.

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Ingredients:

  • 1 cups dry  mung beans (Soaked for 4-8 hours)*
  • 1 cup puy, green lentils (no need to soak)*
  • 6 cups vegetable broth
  • 1 tablespoon oil
  • 1 onion, minced
  • 2 tablespoons cumin
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 3 tablespoons green curry paste
  • 1 tablespoons freshly grated ginger
  • 1 cup coconut milk
  • 1 bunch chopped or pulled malunggay leaves (or spinach or arugula)
  • salt to taste

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Directions:

Boil: Bring the broth to a boil in a large pot. Add the rinsed and soaked mung beans and cook, uncovered, for about 40 minutes total. After about 20 minutes add the green lentils, curry paste and cumin. You want the consistency to be like a very thick soup. Add water if needed, but don’t forget you’ll add coconut milk later.

Saute: Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Saute the onion, garlic, and ginger in the oil in a large nonstick skillet until soft and fragrant, about 3 minutes. Add tofu and saute for about 5 more minutes. Add to the mung pot and allow the mixture to simmer together for a few minutes.

Mix: Stir in the coconut milk and malunggay/spinach/arugula leaves. Remove the pot from the heat. It just needs to be hot enough to very slightly wilt the leaves. Serve over rice or plain, like a soup.

*Note on legume pre-soaking and cooking times: Even though dried beans and lentils are both legumes, because dried beans are larger and have higher amounts of oligosaccharides (long-chain sugars that are difficult to digest) than lentils, the larger beans need to be pre-soaked and have longer cook times. So the larger the legume, the harder it is to digest and the longer the soak and cook time.

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Salad with Arugula and Tangy Orange Dressing

Ingredients:

Salad

  • arugula
  • a few sprigs of lavender
  • 1 cup blueberries
  • 1 red onion chopped
  • borage flowers
  • sweet peas
  • chives

Dressing

  • 1/3 cup oil
  • 1/3 cup fresh orange juice
  • fresh coarse pepper to taste
  • 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
  • 1 tsp fresh cilantro, chopped

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 Directions:

Combine all of the garden vegetables and herbs in a bowl. Combine all of the dressing ingredients in a jar and mix. Pour dressing over salad as desired and enjoy.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Mad Dog

    That looks delicious – like me, you are slaving over a hot stove in summer! Somehow I can’t help myself. For a change I’m barbecuing tonight – it’s the hottest day of the year so far 😉

    • Amanda

      Thanks, MD. I was in gym clothes as I made it. It was like a workout! BBQ sounds great. I’m going downtown to watch the Colombia game at a beer garden and letting my friend cook! 🙂 I’ll try to stay out of the kitchen. Enjoy!

  2. foodisthebestshitever

    It sounds like you have the right type of friends – olive grove indeed.

    Those pics are absolutely cracking! This food looks great… Even if your talk of summer annoys me just a little. Smiley face

    • Amanda

      LOL! Thank you. I totally agree. I was thinking of you and all of your compatriots when I sent the summer wishes. However, I don’t feel too bad. You guys don’t get snow. Your winters are like a cold summer day here. By the way, this morning I made pancakes out of the tapioca flour with a little bit of regular flour mixed in. They had the same elasticity as the pan de bono. Not sure you want that in a pancake. But i eat anything.

  3. My French Heaven

    Oh how I love green lentils! And ginger, don’t get me started on fresh ginger… Great post and very nice shots too! You are so talented!

  4. Fig & Quince

    Ah Amanda! What an inspiring post to welcome the summer. Wistful sigh in this corner as well! Gorgeous writing and such an appetizing dish (love love lentils) and I hope to make it and hope to similarly “feel a shift in” and “melt a wall” and experience a “flash of electricity” … and a lovely “loosening of the reigns.”

    Happy 4th of July!

    • Amanda

      Oh Azita! So great to have you back. I’m sure it’s a total culture shift to try to adjust to being home, but at least it’s summer now and you can take your bike to the water and hit up the markets. Thanks so much for the compliment. The summer always lifts my spirits. I spend so much time in my head and being analytical, as I suspect you do and so to be in the moment and undivided for a bit is just such a joy. I’m sure you’ll get there too. I hope you enjoyed the fireworks!

    • Amanda

      Thanks, Fae. Yes, it really does have a lot of protein. Our friends are vegetarians so they rely on meals like this for protein. So good.

  7. Darya

    Very nice dishes, Amanda. I Love the fresh salad (how lucky to have a friend who actually can call olive oil “her own”!). I love mung beans, but hardly ever use them for some reason. Have you ever tried sprouting them? It is so much fun, and freshly sprounted mung beans are so much better than store-bought ones, and only take a few days until they are ready.
    And I’ll definitely remember to bring you a large bag of Puy lentils on the day I fly over (if ever such a day comes…). Puy lentils are my favorite kind of lentils, so much flavor, such a nice texture. This sounds like a delicious stew.

    • Amanda

      Thanks, Darya. So nice to hear from you. What a great gift that would be, the puy lentils. This was my first time making them and they are so much better than the regular ones. It’s funny because in Peru, puy means guinea pig. If you order puy, you are certainly not getting lentils. I haven’t tried sprouting them, but I saw they they were a little bit sprouted. I can imagine they’d taste delicious. Would I just leave them in water for a couple of days? What do you normally do with the greens? I’m totally buying more. As for an olive grove, at least you have half the dream…living in France. I hope you’re doing well and enjoying your summer. Will you get any time off?

    • Amanda

      Thanks for such a lovely comment, Cornelia. It’s great that you love to eat this way. It’s really food from the earth the way nature intended it. I was so excited about these wonderful gifts I could barely contain myself. Thanks so much for reading and leaving such a sweet comment.

    • Amanda

      Thanks, Stacey. Get out there and delight! I’m really glad you like this stew. I just finished the last of it. So good!

    • Amanda

      Wow that looks amazing. Thanks for the link. I will try that. It looks so good with the lime and chilis! My kind of eating. Such a cute memory. Thanks for sharing.

    • Amanda

      Thank you so much. Food like this really does make me happy. Thanks so much for your compliments. They really mean a lot.

  15. tinywhitecottage

    Hello Amanda. What I wouldn’t give for both your salad and your stew right now. I love how you used lavender and borage in your salad. I will have to give it a try. Wonderful dressing too! Such a fabulous dinner…and nice to hear the summer is bringing out the best in you. 🙂 I relate.

    • Amanda

      So great to hear from you. I’m glad the summer is treating you well too. I honestly didn’t know what a borage flower was until my friend showed me. They even had fig trees in their yard. I told my husband I was going to go home and have a crisis. I’m so grateful to be in the city and this small apartment around so much culture, but then I see a garden like that and space and a house and start to thinking. I’m kind of like that with everything. I hope you are having some fun this summer and relaxing a bit.

  18. Ngan R.

    I love how hearty and healthy this meal is, Amanda. What a treat it must have been for you to not only receive such lovely gifts (yes, I would like an olive grove, too), but to spend time with friends who let you look over their shoulders in their kitchen. I don’t get to cook with friends often enough, and this reminded me I need to change that. I’m glad to hear you are rejoicing in summer! xx

    • Amanda

      Thanks so much, Ngan. I was glad to hear you are too. This winter was so long and harsh it feels good to have this joy back. It’s rare for me to cook with friends too so that day was a very special treat that we’ll have to do again. This dish was something I would not have done but for that experience. Enjoy your weekend!

    • Amanda

      Oh what a great idea dedy! That would add so much flavor. Thanks for your comment. It really is a healthy delicious and filling stew.