On Food and Cooking

commonly grown, while the small, finer-
textured ones include the prized green French
lentille du Puy, the black beluga, and the
green Spanish pardina. There are varieties
with brown, red, black, and green seedcoats;
most have yellow cotyledons, though some
are red or green. Green seed coats can turn
brown with age and during cooking, thanks to
the clustering of phenolic compounds into
large pigmented complexes (p. 269). Because
they are flat and thin, with thin seed coats,
cooking water only has to penetrate a
millimeter or two from each side, so lentils
soften much more quickly than most beans
and peas, in an hour or less.
Traditional lentil dishes include Indian
masoor dal, whole or hulled and split red
lentils cooked into a porridge, and Middle
Eastern koshary or mujaddharah, a mixture of
whole lentils and rice.
Pea, Black-eyed Pea, Pigeon Pea