Red Lentil Flatbreads

I like to use a hand held stick blender to blend the lentils up after they have been soaked. However, there is absolutely no reason why you could not use a standard blender or even a food processor. To save time doing extra dishes and for convienience, I like to soak my lentils in the same cup or jug that I intend to blend them up in. Lucky for me, my hand held stick blender comes with a large cup to blend things in; it even has a matching lid so I can save leftovers for later. Another great thing that I love about this recipe is that I can soak the blend teh lentil ahead of time or ahead of when I need to cook them. I just blend them up, cover and place in the fridge. When it comes time to cook them up I take it out of the fridge and give it a quick mix before pouring into the pan to cook.

As long as you use a non-stick pan, there is no need to use oil when cooking these lentil flatbreads. In fact, I would suggest you make sure that you will be using a pan with a good non surface because I haven not been able to make these any other way successfully. Although, please do let me know if you have been successful with a pan that does not have a non surface, please share the details of the successful method you used to cook them.
To save time, I use two pans at the same time when cooking these (I would use more if i could fit more on my stovetop!). I only have a standard 600 mm wide freestanding oven and stove so fitting more that two pans on the stovetop is quite the challenge.
It helps to leave a 1 cm rim around the edge when tilting the pan to cover the base of the pan with batter. This is because it allows room for teh spatula to get under the flatbreads whilst flipping them over.
These lentil flatbreads can be made ahead of time. Just cook them up, stack them on a plate, cover and leave in the fridge until required. When it comes time to eat them or use them, just re- heat the whole plate of lentil flatbreads in the microwave then devour.
If you want to be adventurous and try out other flavours or tweak the recipe with a few extras, before blending the red lentils, add the additions then pulverise. Occassionally, I like to add salt and pepper, herbs and other spices.

Another useful tip and trick to know is that these lentil flatbreads freeze quite well. Just make a batch and make sure they are completely cooled before layering foil between each flatbread and placing in the freezer. I like to place the lentil flatbreads with foil between them in to a snaplock bag so it is airtight before placing in the freezer. Of course to prevent freezer burn (and if you have one) you could use a vacummn packer which would prolong the life of the lentil flatbreads in the freezer i.e. make it harder for them to get freezer burn. Otherwise, they have a life of about 3 months in the freezer before I would start questioning what is living or colonising on the flatbreads. When you come to reheat the lentil flatbreads, preferrably defrost them first but placing them straight from the freezer into the microwave works well too. I just like to defrost them first then reheat them in a pan with a little olive oil and get a nice light layer of crispiness. Defrosting and then microwaving gives good results too.

I mentioned at the start of this post that then flatbreads go well with curries and are perfect on their own with a little cashew cream, chutney or spread. Another go to option I like to use these for is as pizza bases, especially if I have leftover curry to use up. What I do is place a lentil flatbread onto the hot plate of a sandwich press, spread some onion chutney all over the base, spread some leftover curry on top, add a scattering of cooked spinach then sprinkle oover a generaous helping of grated cheese. I then pull down the top of the sadwich press making sure to set it so that the top plate is hovering (not touching) the top of the pizza – wedge something into the side of the sandwich press if your sandwich press is not designed to hover. Once the cheese is melted and crispy or browned all over, it is ready to eat.

Who would have thought there could be so many culinary options with these humble lentil flatbreads?

Onto the recipe below….enjoy!