A few days ago, I started sprouting a batch of lentils. This morning, I took some of the beans, now with 0.5-1 mm shoots growing out of them, tossed them in salt, pepper, and paprika, and spread them in a single layer on a pie tim, which I baked in a preheated 250F oven for about 20 minutes. When they came out they had a lovely flavor, but were a bit gummier than I'd like. I'm going to perform the experiment again with the remainder of my sprouts tomorrow, but I'll probably change something. What I'd like is something crunchier--I've had toasted chickpea sprouts that are crunchy and delicious, and I can only hope that a similar effect can be achieved with lentils. Does anyone have any suggestions? I could bake them longer, change the temperature, only add the salt after cooking (as one does to prevent beans in soup from toughening up)... Also, by tomorrow the sprouts will be more developed, with longer shoots. I suspect the chemical changes that take place will also make a difference.
4 Answers
If they're gummy, they might still have too much moisture in them. Try roasting them at higher temperatures or longer and see if they crisp up.
I soaked some Guy de Puy lentils until they had 1/8 inch shoots. Then, I coated my toaster oven tray with a little coconut oil. I took the sprouts and tossed them in a bowl with some ginger powder, chili powder, and sea salt. I spread them out on the toaster oven tray, and baked them at 250F for 60 minutes. Every 10 minutes while they cooked, I opened up the toaster oven to stir the lentils with a spatula and spread them out again. What I ended up with is delightfully crunchy with a warm flavor. I will definitely be trying this experiment out again!
In our country, Philippines, if we needed to make something a bit crunchy we would put them in a batter of egg and flour and deep fry them. I have been researching on this as well because I have a batch of lentils that I want to cook and make a snack out of. I am thinking that baking will make it either hard or soggy and roasting like on a pan might burn it so I want to try and deep fry it. Hope this helps! :-)
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Please come back and let us know if this works; from your answer it's hard to tell if it's a good idea or not!– Cascabel ♦Jan 12, 2015 at 21:23
I made banana chocolate lentil balls yesterday, added the lentil sprouts, mashed banana and flour and egg and made balls with them and deep-fried in oil. The result was fluffy and soft dough and then crunchy nutty lentil sprouts inside. I'll try deep frying the lentils later and just add some spices to flavor it, I'll update as well. :-)
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I think the OP is trying to make just the lentil sprouts crunchy, not to fry them inside something else. Are you saying that you think deep-frying just the sprouts would work?– Cascabel ♦Jan 14, 2015 at 5:04