red lentil dhal

this recipe is so good that I sometimes find myself fantasizing about it and then I know it's time to whip up some dhal again. I originally got this off the Post Punk Kitchen website (see our links), so all credit needs to go to the amazing Isa. not only does it taste deee-lish, but I get to use my mortar and pestle! hm. both of those words look like better Scrabble words than they really are.

you need:

• 3 tablespoons peanut oil
• 1 medium yellow onion
• 1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup dried red lentils
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 4-5 cups water or vegetable broth
• 5 plum tomatoes, chopped
• juice of 1 lime
• 1 cup fresh cilantro
• SPICE BLEND:
• 2 teaspoons mustard seeds
• 1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
• 1 teaspoon coriander seeds
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 6 cloves, whole
• 4 cardomom pods
• pinch of red chili powder (or more?)
  
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

you do:
first you toast all members of the spice blend - except the red chili and cinnamon! - in a saute pan over medium heat. stir frequently for about 5 minutes and then remove from heat. put all of the spice blend (including the missing duo) into your mortar and pestle and grind to a fine powder.

I'd like to make two notes at this point:

1. you can also use a coffee grinder to blend the spices. this is fast.
2. if you do decide to go the Amish route, have some good reading on hand. I chose the music issue of the Believer.

add oil to a soup pot and turn up to medium-high heat. add the onions and saute for five minutes. then add the garlic and ginger and saute for another five minutes. you'll want to stir fairly often so that nothing gets stuck to the bottom of the pan. add the spices and salt and then saute for five more minutes.
pour 4 cups of water and stir fully to deglaze the pot. add the tomato paste and the lentils. bring the pot to a boil and then lower the heat. leave uncovered and allow to simmer for 20 minutes.


hm. that doesn't look quite amazing yet. actually looks a bit like I'm making pizza in the bottom of a soup pot. must be time to add the tomatoes, lime juice, and cilantro! (if your dhal is too thick, you can add more water, but this has never happened to me.) let the whole thing simmer for another ten minutes and then you're good to serve. and your whole home will smell incredibly and you tastebuds will thank you. you can serve it on rice or plain.



I cooked up some potatoes and tempeh in the sauce pan I had used for toasting spices and added some garlic powder. it was a good complement, unless you don't eat tempeh.

I have forgotten nearly every ingredient in this recipe at one time or another and it's always tasted incredible. frequently I don't add the red chili. sometimes I skip out on the cinnamon. tonight I forgot the lime juice, but since that's pretty much in the last step, the dhal was already great by that point. I was about to make some sort of generalization about skipping ingredients added in the last ten minutes, but I realized that kind of attitude would land my sorry arse in detention should I try it in potions class. and clearly, if something doesn't work in Harry Potter, then it's not applicable in real life either.