I spotted a similar recipe to this on Vegetarian Times. Theirs looked too sweet to me, so I decided to roll my own.

Ingredients

• 1 cup green lentils, washed and picked over
• 1 yellow onion minced
• 1 carrot, diced
• 1 cup chopped green beans
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tsp cumin seed
• 1 tbsp grated fresh ginger
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp cayenne powder
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1/2 cup minced cilantro
• salt and pepper
• 1 batch of rough puff pastry or store-bought puff pastry dough
• 1 egg, beaten with a tbsp of water
• black sesame seeds

Instructions

Place the lentils in a pot and cover with water. There should be at least an inch of water above the lentils. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for ten minutes. Add the carrot and green beans to the pot, cover, and cook until the lentils and veg. are tender, another ten minutes or so.

Heat a bit of oil in a large saucepan. Add the onion and cook, stirring, until it is translucent, 5 minutes or so. Add the cumin seed, garlic and ginger, cook for another 2-3 minutes, then add the rest of the spices and soy sauce. Cook until fragrant. Add the lentils and cook, uncovered, until almost all of the liquid has cooked off. You’ll want this curry to be fairly dry, or the turnovers won’t be crisp. Remove from the heat and cool completely.

Preheat the oven to 400. Divide your pastry in half. Keep one half in the fridge while rolling out the other. Roll the pastry thin, and trim it to an 8″ x 12″ rectangle.

Divide this into six 4″ squares (using a ruler or framing square makes this much easier). Save the trimmed pieces to roll out again later.

Place the pastry squares on a parchment- or silpat-lined baking sheet. Place 2-3 tbsp of filling on each square, brush the edges with egg wash, then fold and crimp the edges. I used a fork dipped in flour, but you can simply pinch them shut. Brush the tops with the egg wash, and sprinkle with black sesame seeds. Bake for 30 minutes.

While the first batch is baking, continue with the second half of the pastry dough. Roll, trim, fill, wash, and crimp. You should have enough trimmed dough left over to make one more batch, giving you a total of eighteen turnovers.

They are good hot or at room temperature. If you are so inclined, you can also freeze the turnovers before cooking. Put the frozen turnovers directly into a hot oven, and add ten minutes to the cooking time.