Yes you can make little balls out of red lentils and eat your fingers with them! I love them, very delicious, very easy to prepare, eat as side dish or main dish, very satisfying.

What you need to prepare this delicious Turkish dish: 

·          1 and 4/5 cups* of  red lentils

·          4/5 cup of fine burghul**

·          5-6 green onions

·          2 mid size onions

·          1 tablespoon of tomato paste

·          125 ml. +1 tablespoon of olive oil

·          A handfull of dill

·          A handfull of parsley

·          2 teaspoons of cumin

·          1 teaspoon of black pepper

·          1 teaspoon of red pepper flakes

·          1 teaspoon of salt

·          1 Lemon and 1 Lettuce to serve.

Preparation: 

·          Put lentils in a deep pot and add 3 and 1/5 cups of water. Put the pot over medium heat and cook until the lentils are mushy. After that turn the heat off, add the fine burghul over lentils and tight close the lid of the pot. After half an hour the burghul will soften and expand with the heat and moist of lentils. 

·          In that half an hour, get a pan, put one tablespoon of olive oil in it and get it over medium heat. Put the onions that you have finely chopped in the pan and when they are lightly browned, add the tomato paste, stir a few times and turn the heat off. 

·          Chop the green onions, dill and parsley into very fine pieces. 

·          Add the onions, green onions, parsley, dill, 125 ml. of olive oil, cumin, black pepper, red pepper flakes and salt on the red lentils and burghul that you have left to rest. 

·          Mix them all and knead then into a dough and keep kneading until all the ingredients are fully mixed into each other. 

·          Make little balls from the dough with your hands and lay them in a flat plate. 

·          Serve them with lemon and lettuce leaves. The method is that you put one lentil in a lettuce leaf and sprinkle some lemon juice over it. 

Enjoy! 

For other easy & tasty recipes visit: http://easytasty.blogspot.com/ 

Some tips that you should know before starting to prepare: 

·          When the lentils come to a boil just turn the heat to a lower level. It is very important that the lentils absorb all the water plus you cook them until you see not even one little round red lentil but a mush. So if the lentils absorb water before getting to a mush, add some more hot water over it. I do not need this with the measures I gave but every stove is different, the heat level might not be the same and the lentils might absorb water before they become a mush so keep an eye on them at your first time. 

·          I like red lentil balls very spicy but if you are not used to spices or not like them much, at your first time add half of the measures that I gave above into the mixture. When your dough is ready to make the balls, taste a pinch from it. See if it suits your taste. You can add some more of the spices if you think that they are not enough and knead the dough once more. 

·          As you see the recipe contains versions of onion and you need to knead the ingredients with your hands. You can use transparent plastic gloves which I can find in Turkey and I am sure you will find them in your country too. This will prevent the scent of onion to reek on your hands. 

·          Two more reasons to eat red lentil dishes: 1) They strengthen immune system, which is something really good especially in these days of H1N1 virus danger. 2) It is also known that they enhance breast milk. 

*1 cup=250 ml. Actually we use in Turkey a measure like 1 water glass=200 ml. If you will use the water glass measure you will need 2 waterglasses of red lentils, 4 waterglasses of water to make them a mush and 1 waterglass of fine burghul.

**If you live anywhere other than Asia I think you can find burghul (bulghur or bulgur or cracked wheat) in Asian shops or maybe even in regular shops.