French-Indian food

One of my favourite Indian restaurants - Chez Mumtaj in St Albans.

Their weekend menu is not as vegetarian-friendly as it is during the week, but you can still get a few lovely dishes. A little swank, not your typical curry in a hurry kind of place :)

Paneer Shashlik - my favourite!

Spinach dumplings

Quick dinner - lentils with mushrooms

Ingredients for 2 -3:

1.5 cup red lentils (check that they don't require long soaking)
3-4 handfuls of oyster or other type of chopped mushrooms
half a cup of rice
half an onion
1 tsp salt
1 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp chilli powder
olive oil for frying
soy sauce (optional)

1. Cook the lentils with all the spices as recommended on the packet, normally 10-15 min.

2. Fry the mushrooms and onions with a little salt and pepper for about 10 minutes.

3. Once the lentils are soft and have absorbed most of the water (a little water is good as it creates a nice sauce), add the mushrooms and onions. Serve with rice. It's not a very saucy dish so the lentil to rice ratio should be 1:1 or 1:0.5

You can also pour a little soy sauce over the rice for a stronger flavour.