At least once a week I try to have a meatless meal and when you combine this with using ingredients only on hand (Yes I'm still trying to empty out my pantry) you get dahl. Easy and tasty as well as surprisingly satisfying when served with a bowl of basmati rice and some garlic naan.
If you haven't dried making dahl before you really should. This dahl recipe is particularly fragrant with a little tartness to off set the mellow spices. Nutricious and so simple to make this recipe is adaptable no two bowls need taste the same.
Spiced Lentil Soup
100g red lentils
1.5 litres water
2 Tbspns oil
8-10 curry leaves (optional but worth hunting down
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 stick of cinnamon
8 cloves
1 large vine ripened tomato finely chopped or 1/2 can of chopped tomato
2 cm piece of ginger finely chopped (grated)
2 cloves garlic
2 teaspoons salt
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
2 tablespoons lenon juice
1 teaspoon tumeric.
Cook the lentils in the water for approximately 1 hour until soft. Blend with hand held blender or pass through a seive.
Heat a large pan add the oil and the spices (not tumeric that comes later) until the seeds begin to pop. Add the ginger, garlic, tomato and curry leaves cook until soft. Add the lentils, sugar, salt, lemon and tumeric simmer for thirty minutes and serve.
