Red Lentil Gruel — The Tugboat

I’ve made red lentils only once before with middling success. I was unaware that they swell and you end up with up to 4x what you thought you were making. I had to split my efforts into two pots that time and ended up sending a friend, McQ home with some of the gruel. He really seemed to enjoy it. We froze some more of it and ate it for a week. It was hilariously foolish. Since I’m locked down and trying to create quick meals, I figured I’d take another run at red lentils. This time I wanted to use my new toy, the instant pot. I spent some time learning more about cooking lentils and what could I do to cook them in the IP. I consulted several recipes to make a plain side. I had some chicken stock and decided that since lentils suck up flavours to share with you later, it would be the ideal liquid component to my scheme. Several recipes said I should use a ratio of one part lentil to 1.75 parts liquid. Seemed excess to me but who am I to argue. I also learned that I don’t have to soak the lentils, unless I’m trying to reduce the cook time, but it is recommended to rinse them. So I rinsed then but lacked the small screen strainer so I used my hand as part of my straining efforts. Lots of dust and chaff was removed as well as some excess starch. I combined the lentil, the appropriate amount of stock and some red pepper flakes in the IP and cooked it on high pressure for ten minutes then let it release naturally. I was supposed to let it release for 10 minutes but was reading about how to hack your NES Classic to add more games and it went for 17 minutes.

I opened it up to discover a creamy mashed potato consistency. I’m no expert but that isn’t what I should have seen. As it cooled, it retained its form to a strange new solid. The taste was excellent. The red pepper flakes added a delightful zip. The consistency was odd but interesting. During the post mortem I decided that they’d taken on too much water during the rinsing effort. I also let it go too long and this resulted in a beyond mushy consistency. I’ve since had leftovers and it remains delicious. A very happy accident.