Five portions of fruit and veg and flotation tanks

[venta]

I've recently gone from thinking I didn't like lentils at all to thinking that dahl is bloody marvellous. So I was wondering whether anyone had made it at home, and could recommend a recipe.

On a whim on Monday I bought a packet of green lentils, and then had a bit of a google around for a recipe. Unfortunately, I suspect dahl (or even dhal) is one of those umbrella words that covers a multitude of variants: for a start, it seems it doesn't even have to be made with lentils. Yellow split peas are also an option. I'm slightly afraid of yellow split peas: I hate mushy peas and pease pudding, and fear that any dahl made with them might be horrible.

I took a vague average of some recipes I found, and made up my own. (Boil lentils until dead, fry onions, garlic, ginger, cumin seeds, black mustard seeds and pepper together, mix everything up. Throw in spinach. Cook until hungry. Sainsbury's don't sell otter, so I had to leave that out.) It was "ok", not bad for a first effort. It also smelt nicer than it tasted, which seems to be a peculiar property of homemade curries.

Does anyone have any instructions or general advice to offer ? Or any comments on which pulses generic dahl-from-the-takeaway might usually be made from ?

Also during my whimsical supermarket trip on Monday I bought a box of "broccoli sprouts" (which are very different from "sprouting broccoli"). The past couple of days my work baitbox has been full of a surpisingly nice salad of rocket, beetroot, chopped pepper and broccoli sprouts. I have been eating - and enjoying - something which is blatantly a weirdo health food.

I fear this might be the beginning of the end. Lentils and split peas are veering dangerously close to mungbean territory. And now broccoli sprouts. I worry that before you can say "Gillian McKeith" I shall be sprouting my own alfalfa and complaining about the lack of decent raw and unprocessed wild blue green algae on the market.

You would stop me, right ?

Comments

[rosenkavalier.livejournal.com]

The recipe I make quite often is:

Roughly equal quantities of green and red lentils
Onion, finely chopped
Mushroom, finely chopped
Garlic, finely chopped
Chilli, finely chopped or Chilli chutney
Passata/tomato purée
Vegetable stock
Cumin seeds
Coriander leaf
Turmeric
Garam massala
Asa foetida

If I remember, I normally try to soak the lentils for a few hours beforehand (it makes the cooking quicker, and removes some of the starch, but it's not essential if you forget).
Fry off the onions and garlic (and chilli, if using), add the mushrooms and briefly fry, then add the (drained if previously soaked) lentils, cumin seeds, coriander and turmeric.
Add water or vegetable stock, and the passata/purée to just cover the ingredients. Bring to a low simmer, adding water/stock as necessary to prevent it drying out.
After about 5-10 minutes add the garam massala (and chilli chutney, if using instead of whole chillis).
Continue to simmer until the lentils are tender, and the whole has thickened. A few minutes before the end add the asa foetida.
Serve with chapatis.

I often vary it, depending on what I have available (the lentils can be added to/substituted by rice, kidney beans or chick peas, for example). It generally seems to work well.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Blimey, you cook as well ? Is there no end to your talents ?

I've just had to look up what asa foetida was. Which would be less annoying if I wasn't perfectly aware that I'd looked it up any number of times in the past. I must acquire some and then when I've obvsered it and tasted it I might actually manage to remember.

Thanks for the recipe. I seem to have been left quite a few so may well be be about to be quite a dhalliance with lentils and their friends.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Asafoetida is good stuff, but you have to be careful keeping it as the smell gets everywhere. In the freezer is good.

You might find it labelled as 'hing' in Indian shops. THey do say it's good for digestion, although I don't know if that's really true.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Mmmm, lentils!

I also love canned chickpeas and white beans, which you can drain and whizz up in the food processor with herbs and lemon juice to make an instant spread or dip.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

I tend to eat red lentils, due to my extreme laziness. They work quite well in a tomato sauce; fry onions & garlic, add lentils and cinnamon bark, fry a bit more, add tin tomatoes, stock, red wine, and herbs and simmer until done.

[marjory.livejournal.com]

Dhal:

1. Heat some oil and bung in some onion seeds. When they start to pop, add half of a finely chopped onion and some garlic, Or ignore the onion seed bit. Chopped up red chilli is good too.

2. Soften the onion and then put in a couple of handfuls of red lentils. Mix and stir until the lentils go translucent. Add a pinch of turmeric and turn your wooden spoon irrevocably yellow.

3. Add about double the quantity of water. Bring it all to the boil for the statutory 5 minutes and then simmer on low for as long as it takes to reduce the water and for everything to go mushy. This keeps on going, like porridge, but you'd need to add more liquid to stop it all from burning. As an optional thing, you could replace about some of the fluid with coconut milk. Salt is also helpful.

HTH

[j4.livejournal.com]

If red lentils count, this is one of my favourite recipes ever.

I just had bucketfuls of lentil (and brown rice and couscous and dolmades and other varieties of OM NOM NOM NOM) from the nice deli for lunch, but that's not so much a recipe, more a way of lifegeneral recommendation for the Woodstock Road cheeseshop deli.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ooh, coconut millk :) Will definitely have to give that a try.

I pretty much never go to the Woodstock Rd area, so sadly don't know this deli-of-wonders of which you speak.

[kissifa.livejournal.com]

Mung-beans are lovely - especially as a filling in mochi. They sell them in the Chinese Supermarket on Hythe Bridge Street - delicious!

Perchance the people at veggie_diaries would like your salad recipe, ad could suggest some gorgeous things to help further tempt you into weird health food territory. ;)

[venta.livejournal.com]

I can't post a recipe for that kind of salad:

Put rocket salad in box.
Put half chopped pepper in box.
Put chopped cooked beetroot in box.
Scatter broccoli sprouts on top of box.
Put lid on box.

Now make a hole in the end of an egg, insert a straw...

could suggest some gorgeous things to help further tempt you into weird health food territory. ;)

I don't think I want to go into weird health food territory, or so I said as I tucked into my soya bean, pumpkin seed and artichoke afternoon-snack yesterday.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Dall does indeed cover any kind of lentils, and other pulses to boot. Even mung beans, or "mung dall" as you'll soon learn to know them.

Specifics vary between difrerent kinds of lentil, but the basics are:

* fry up your onions, spices etc first:

* add lentils, maybe having soaked them first if they're a big tough kind, and fry them up among the spices;

* add liquid ingredients, bring to boil, simmer until done.

For the more floury kinds of lentils, eg. red ones, a handy rule of thumb is half a cup of lentils to one cup of water.

[erming.livejournal.com]

I think the ones from curry houses used the yellow split peas.

At least when dad or one of my aunties cooked dahl, they always used split peas.

Haven't the foggiest how to cook it though.

Hmmm, liking lentils, next thing you'll be telling us you are into folk dancing... >;-)

[venta.livejournal.com]

next thing you'll be telling us you are into folk dancing

Good grief, no. I have some standards.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

D(a(h))al is the food of the ghods.

If you want to make Tarka Dal like you get in your local curry house, I can recommend "The Curry Secret" - but be warned, the recipe is multi-stage. It's a lot less faff if you're a restaurant, but a lot more faff if you're an ordinary person.

My approach is generic made-up-on-the-spot stuff, but it generally goes:

- Put lentils on to boil, with optional leaves or thingummies in to flavour (curry leaves, bay leaves, etc)
- Fry first-wave spices in (plenty) oil to release the smell, then soften an onion in there, then adding garlic and ginger a bit later
- When lentils are done, mix both in to one big pot
- Add second-wave spices, warm through, serve. Optional lemon.

At a minimum, first-wave spices are a dollop from a jar of Patak's curry paste, and second-wave spices are a load of pre-mix Garam Masala. You can get all experimental with mixing your own, which is lots of fun if you can be bothered, but IME you have to be really good to beat the readymix as at least a starting point.

This works with whatever lentils or pulses you like. Green, brown and puy lentils come out much less mushy but it's all good. Or try your local supermarket's Asian section for dead-cheap megabags of a bewildering array of pulses.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I meant to say - there's no clear consensus on how to spell the dish in English, so don't expect a Single True Recipe.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Aye :)

I actually enjoy Indian restaurant menus just for the transliteration. I'm always happy to find pillow rice offered with a meal.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

!!I have that book, it's great.

[smiorgan.livejournal.com]

We used to make a nice dish of puy lentils with tomatoes (tin of), anchovies, garlic etc, served on a bed of couscous and with a soft poached egg on top. Really really nice. Haven't made it recently since it may have triggered triskellian's asthma.

I think the lentil bit was made by
- frying onion and garlic
- adding lentils + tomatoes + water (rinse out tin) + anchovies + other things (mmm, capers?)
- simmer until tender / liquid has reduced

Sort of a Dhal Provencale.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Dhal Provencale

Genius :)

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

I don't know about dhal specifically - but a lot of the taste & look of home-made curries suddenly starts tasting a lot more restaurant-y if you use ghee (clarified butter. Can't remember the name of the main brand that tends to be found in the shops, but it comes in a big gold-and-green tin with a cow on it, and you can usually find it in the Indian section of supermarkets alongside the catering-size bags of spices & bombay mix, etc), and fry your spices off in it before adding anything else to the pan.

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

Oh, and if you're investigating Cooking With Lentils in general - here's a few recipes I have scribbled down that my mum used to cook at home....

Lentil & Celery Au-Gratin: http://the.earth.li/~neve/recipes/mum-augratin.html
Lentil Fritters: http://the.earth.li/~neve/recipes/mum-lentilfritters.html
Lentil Soup: http://the.earth.li/~neve/recipes/mum-lentilsoup.html

(The last does include priceless quotes from my mother on the rocket science principles of buying meat when it's on special offer, and not using meat stock when cooking for vegetarians...)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yup. I wasn't using ghee in this instance, but I have before and it does make a big difference. The trouble is that I don't use it that often, and thus don't really get through it quickly enough.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

You can make your own ghee in small quantities, by melting butter and skimming it.

(There's probably something useful you can do with the skimmings, too, althogh I can't think what. Put them out for the robins maybe.)

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Oh oh me.

Cook some red lentils and drain them.

In a different pan probably non stick, put a goodly quantity of butter in a pan and melt it. Leave it on the heat until it froths. frothy frothy. It will start to not froth and go slightly brown*. Now throw in a small onion chopped finely, a couple of cloves of garlic, and about a teaspoon of chopped fennel. Fry it until the onion is slightly browning. Now throw in a teaspoon of turmeric and some, er, I think garam masala, less than the turmeric. Stir it in. Now pour in the lentils** and stir stir stir. It will be a bit soggy, so turn the heat down and stir it around until it's only a little bit soggier than bread dough before it's been kneaded.

*It is vital not to answer the phone at this point or you will burn the house down

**it doesn't matter how much lentils you put into the pan; it will always come out as one small strainer half-full of cooked red lentils.

[(Anonymous)]

*It is vital not to answer the phone at this point or you will burn the house down.


How do you know?

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I nearly did by forgetting about it. Luckily I was cooking for two, and the other person said "this butter has gone black, shouldn't you do something about it?", and I grabbed it off the heat and took it out through the kitchen door, then ran a sink of cold water and put it in it. PFSHHHHHH.

[venta.livejournal.com]

it doesn't matter how much lentils you put into the pan; it will always come out as one small strainer half-full of cooked red lentils.

Interesting. That's kind of the reverse effect I have with rice: no matter how much I put in the pan it will always come out as slightly too little (if cooking for one) or way too much (if cooking for two).

[leathellin.livejournal.com]

I bought a box of "broccoli sprouts" (which are very different from "sprouting broccoli")

The local market sells sprouts (probably including the brussel kind but I don't care about them) so we've had leek sprouts which were very oniony, asparagus sprouts which I like and another which i've forgotten for the time being. There's also red cabbage sprouts, I don't think we've tried them yet.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Does cabbage sprout !?

(Well, obviously it does in some sense.)

The broccoli sprouts are quite sharp and even a bit peppery, and taste nothing at all like broccoli.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Given that cabbage, broccoli and brussels sprouts are all the same species (as is cauliflower and kale), I imagine that you can easily find something which both sprouts, and can reasonably be called a cabbage.