To me, a dahl often feels like a big hug in a bowl. It’s the perfect dish to batch cook, allowing you to freeze some and save it for another day when you’re time poor.
Nutritionally, it is packed full of anti-inflammatory spices and slow cooked to optimise digestion. I have changed it up a little and served this with a chickpea pancake, but you can just as easily have it with brown rice or by itself depending on what you have available.
Ingredients:
1 tbls coconut oil
1 tbls each of turmeric, garam masala + curry powder
1 onion, diced
4 cloves of garlic, diced
1inch piece of ginger, grated
400g red lentils
½ litre of veg stock
400ml coconut milk
¼ cauliflower floret, chopped
Large handful of peas
½ bag of spinach
½ tsp of chilli flakes
1tbls mustard seeds
1tbls cumin seeds
1 cup of gram flour
1 cup of water
For the dahl:
1. Add coconut oil to a large pot, followed by the onion, garlic, ginger + spices. Stir to combine + fry on medium heat for 2 minutes.
2. Add lentils, stock + coconut milk to pot. Turn up heat to boiling and then reduce to a simmer.
3. Add cauliflower and simmer for 30-40 minutes.
4. While cooking, add coconut oil, chilli flakes + seeds to a frying pan on medium heat. Fry until seeds start to pop, stirring constantly.
5. Add these to the dahl, stirring through the peas + spinach.
6. Top with toasted coconut flakes.
For the chickpea pancakes (makes two):
1. Whisk together the gram flour + water
2. Fry in a little coconut oil, flipping when batter starts to bubble. Cook until gold + crispy.