Preparation

• 1
  1. First cook the rice, brown or white, and allow it to cool
• 2
  you need about 200g cooked weight. 2. To prepare the vegetables, nuts and herbs, peel and chop the shallot and the ginger very finely, then peel the garlic. Deseed and chop the red chilli. Chop the celery finely then peel and grate the carrot. Wipe and cut the mushrooms into small pieces. Chop the walnuts quite finely too. Finely chop the coriander and parsley leaves.
• 3
  3. Heat a tablespoon of oil in a large saucepan and cook the shallot over a low heat, stirring, for 2 minutes, then add the ginger, crushed garlic, celery and red chilli and cook for another 3 minutes.
• 4
  4. Add the walnuts, mushrooms and the fresh coriander and parsley and cook gently for a further 2-3 minutes.
• 5
  5. Turn off the heat then stir in the grated carrot, cooked rice and half of the drained canned lentils. Add the garam masala, ground coriander, cumin and cayenne pepper, season with salt and black pepper, and mix well together. Transfer to a food processor and pulse several times.
• 6
  6. Tip the mixture into a large bowl then combine with the rest of the lentils. Add a beaten egg and a tablespoon or two of olive oil to bind everything together then check the seasoning.
• 7
  7. Sift some plain flour into a shallow bowl. Use your hands to shape the mixture into patties of the desired shape and size then dip into the flour and flip over to lightly coat on both sides.
• 8
  8. Heat the oven to 180 degrees or 160 degrees fan oven. Lightly oil a baking sheet and warm in the oven.
• 9
  9. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan and quickly fry the patties in the hot oil for just 2 minutes on each side to brown them before transferring to the baking sheet. [Do handle them carefully so that they don’t fall apart.] Bake for about 20 minutes.
• 10
  10. To make the lemon mayonnaise, simply mix finely grated zest of lemon into a small bowl of mayonnaise then add lemon juice to taste.