What about a curry tonight?

I realised that all my recipes so far have required an oven and I know that not everyone has ovens at uni so here's a very simple curry recipe for which you only need a pan and the hob!


I must admit though that whichever way we cook rice, it turns out quite gloopy and too wet each time so if anyone's got a foolproof way of making fluffy rice in which you can actually see individual grains of rice, please let me know below! :D 


This is a vegetarian recipe but you can easily make this into a meat curry if you like by replacing the lentils with chicken breast or whatever takes your fancy. Just make sure to cook it until there's no pink meat showing! 

For the curry:


1 onion, chopped
500g red lentils (or meat if you prefer)
Half a jar of curry paste (I used Patak's Balti Paste from Sainsbury's)
1 can of chopped tomatoes
1 packet fresh coriander, roughly chopped


1. Fry the onions in a large pan with some oil until golden brown. Add the lentils and the curry paste and stir to coat everything in the pan. Add the tomatoes and stir again. 
2. Have a cup of water besides the pan and whenever the curry looks too dry/is sticking to the pan, add some water so there's enough liquid for the lentils to cook (despite some rumours that lentils are poisonous when uncooked, this is actually not true. I undercooked the lentils slightly in this curry so they kept some bite rather being completely mushy and I'm glad to say that we're all perfectly alive!). 
3. Simmer for about 15-20 minutes and keep adding water if it gets too dry. Add the fresh coriander at the end and serve with rice and naan bread! (If anyone finds this too spicy, just add a tablespoon or two of Greek yoghurt and that'll make things much milder!)