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I bought some black beluga lentils, i heard that you were supposed to boil them before using them, i want to add them to a curry that will simmer for 2 hours, should i boil them first or just throw them in to the curry?

ShadySpiritomb
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It is common for dal or curry recipes to involve cooking the lentils separately, and then adding them to a fried spice and/or vegetable base. This is particularly common with long-cooking lentils like brown lentils or chana dal.

However, beluga lentils are quick-cooking, done in about 20 minutes. As such, adding them to the rest of the curry ingredients directly should work fine. In fact, if the curry needs to simmer for 2 hours, you might consider adding them after 1 hour. Just make sure that the curry as a lot of liquid in it, though; the lentils will absorb twice their volume in water.

FuzzyChef
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There's no need to cook lentils before adding them to a curry that will be cooked for at least half an hour that has enough liquid for the lentils to absorb. This will also give the lentils more flavor than cooking in water separately.

But cooking the lentils in the curry for a long time will make them more likely to fall apart. If you prefer your lentils to be more firm, you might want to cook them separately and add them to the curry at the end of the cooking process instead.

solemnpigeon
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