Now here's a thrilling statistic: according to the Office for National Statistics around 92 percent of UK households own a microwave. Lolz and I are one of the 8 ish percent who rely on more traditional cooking techniques. Therefore, these 15 minute meals are about as fast as it gets when we are looking for a speedy dinner. As I got to Waitrose on my way home from a crazy day at work I was torn between doing a 15 minute meal or taking advantage of their curry themed dinner for two for £10 deal. I wasn't exactly overflowing with enthusiasm but, given that our lack of a microwave meant that "ready meals" would take longer to cook than the Jamie alternative I decided to opt for the former.
I hadn't picked a meal in advance either, so I was flicking through the iPhone app looking for a meal for which the ingredients would be readily available and the execution would be fairly straightforward. This Middle Eastern inspired curry dish seemed to fit the bill ingredients-wise (Waitrose seemed to have stocked up on Puy lentils since I cooked that Spiced Chicken dish back in February), but offered no clues as to it's level of difficulty. I have been known to knock up a fairly decent curry though so was feeling fairly confident I could pull it off...
Kofta are basically Middle Eastern meatballs, so the inclusion of the lentils I feel may be a bit of a diversion from the traditional recipe but I was quite interested to see how they would turn out. After a therapeutic few minutes spent squeezing the mince and lentil mixture through my hands I moulded them into cigar shapes and put them in the pan. The accompanying sauce required merely "wazzing up" in the liquidizer, with the rice cooking quietly in the background. It was remarkably simple. I even got to do a bit of tidying up before it was done.
Dishing up, I would have to say it did not look terribly appetizing and I sprinkled it rather liberally with coriander in order to try and hide the brown-ness of it. Thankfully it tasted much better than it looked - spicy, rich. smoky and exotic. And as is often the case with curries, it was even better heated up the next day. Lolz was less impressed - she wanted more sauce and felt the lentils didn't really add anything.
Lolz gave the dish 7/10. Difficulty rating 1/10.
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