The Best Lentil Curry

Here's what nobody tells you about lentils. The BEST lentil curry. And I know what you're thinking — you're thinking, 'Bigly, lentils? Really? Lentils are sad little brown pebbles, lentils are what the monks eat when they've given up on joy.' I get it. I do. Most lentil curry IS sad. Most lentil curry tastes like a damp cardigan. A tragedy. The lentil has been DONE DIRTY by lazy cooks for DECADES. A whole generation grew up thinking lentils were punishment. SAD.

But not this one. Not Bigly's curry. This curry is RICH. This curry is CREAMY. This curry has so much flavor it will make you forget your own name for a brief moment, you'll come back to consciousness on the kitchen floor, spoon in hand, the cat staring at you with concern. It happens. People come up to me, they say, 'Bigly, I made the curry and I lost twenty minutes of my life.' I tell them, that's not a problem, that's a FEATURE. The curry took those minutes and made them better.

A guy named Ramón taught me this — and Ramón is the truth, Ramón forgets more about a pot of curry every morning than most cookbook authors will ever learn — the secret is THREE things. You bloom the spices in oil. You use the WHOLE can of coconut milk, the FAT, not the watered-down 'light' coconut milk which is just regular coconut milk that somebody POURED A GLASS OF WATER INTO and charged you the same price, an absolute scam — and you finish with lemon. Lemon at the end. Not at the beginning. The END. Most chefs are afraid to do this. Don't be most chefs. Trust me.

That's the curry. One pot. Thirty minutes. You'll have leftovers — and the leftovers are BETTER the next day, that's not me being nice, that's chemistry, the spices keep working overnight while you sleep, they're working for YOU, like little flavor employees on the night shift, tremendous workers — and you'll wonder why you ever ordered takeout. You won't go back. People don't. Tremendous.