I get a bit too freaked out about health and safety when it comes to cooking.
I am cooking a lentil soup today and have just added a whole bunch of lentils I forgot to rinse. Is the food safe to eat? Is the rinsing for hygienic reasons or for flavour/consistency reasons?
Best Answer
I can only speak for UK supermarkets and you haven't said where you're from, but our lentils are clean as bought. A typical packet doesn't say to rinse them. With red lentils the only reaosn I can see for rinsing is to (slightly) reduce foaming; with Puy lentils and some others even that's not an issue and you may lose flavour.
Some Indian recipes (actually from India rather than westernised) say that when you rinse you need to pick over for stones, but I've never had that with dried lentils or beans.