Three-Pulse Dhal (for “World Pulses Day”)

As so often happens, the notion of having a curry came over me the other day.

When I mentioned it to Diane, she pointed out that Monday 10th February is “World Pulses Day”, and I should make a dhal or something similar involving beans or lentils.

No problem there, I’ve got plenty of cookbooks, some for making authentic Indian dishes, others for reproducing restaurant curries. In the end, what happened was that I looked at what we had available and made the dish up as I went along.

In the freezer, I found a plastic pack of precooked white beans – which could as easily have been a tin of kidney beans from the store cupboard. In that store cupboard, I found split red lentils, and chana dal (split dried chickpeas). There’s a pot of home-made ghee in the fridge, we had onions and garlic, tinned tomatoes and spices from the spice drawer, so this is what I did with them.

NOTE: This is a vegetarian dish. It can become vegan by using coconut oil (recommended) or some other vegetable oil rather than ghee, and leaving out the yoghurt. It can become carnivore by adding cubed meat (beef, lamb, chicken) at the same time as the boiling water, and checking that for doneness when checking the chana dal. For extra flavour, sear the meat in a separate pan before adding it.

Ingredients:

• 125 g/1/2 cup ghee or oil (ghee gives a better flavour)
• 2 onions, sliced thin or chopped fine (I did one of each)
• 4 to 6 cloves of garlic, chopped fine
• 2 – 3 generous Tbsps curry powder of choice (or, if you have the spices, try the home-made masala shown below)
• 200 g/1 cup split red lentils
• 200 g/1 cup chana dal (soak for half an hour)
• 350 g/1 1/2 cups cooked white beans (or used tinned)
• a generous thumb’s length and thickness of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped fine
• 2 (or more) hot fresh chillies, chopped fine
• 2 tins (about 400 g each) chopped tomatoes in juice
• 2 Tbsp tomato purée
• 1 heaped tsp salt
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1 teaspoonful garam masala
• chopped parsley or coriander leaves for garnish

Method:

1. Heat the ghee or oil in a large pan (a wok is good for this) and gently fry the onions until they turn golden. This will take longer than you think. Don’t try to hurry matters by turning up the heat, it doesn’t work and tends to burn some onions before the rest are ready. Use lots of patience, available at good grocery stores, and stir frequently. Once the onions start to soften, add about half the garlic and cook together with the onions for the rest of the frying process.
2. When satisfied with the colour of the onions, push them to one side of the pan (this is where the wok is useful), let the hot oil flow to the middle again and fry the curry powder or masala for two or three minutes, stirring constantly so it doesn’t burn.
3. Add the red lentils and coat them with the spiced oil, then re-incorporate the onions, add the rest of the garlic, and the remaining ingredients except for the garam masala and chopped green herbs.
4. Combine well, add just enough boiling water to reach the level of the mixture. This looks like a lot, but the red lentils will absorb most of it. Stir again, then turn the heat right down, cover with a lid and simmer for 30 minutes.
5. After this time, stir once more and make sure nothing is sticking to the bottom, then check the state of the chana dal, which should be “al dente” to contrast with the softness of the other ingredients. If it’s still too hard, simmer for another 15 to 20 minutes. When done, check yet again, taste for seasoning and adjust as required, possibly adding more salt.
6. Stir one last time, sprinkle on the garam masala, plate up, garnish with the chopped green herbs and serve.

This tastes very good but I thought it looked a little unimpressive (red kidney beans would be better), so I peeled, seeded, cut up and added one each of red, green and yellow sweet peppers, and simmered everything for another 15 minutes. The peppers not only give a touch of colour, but add another variant of crunch contrast.

I accompanied this with a mixture of 1/3 brown / 2/3 white basmati rice, though it was also thick enough to be accompanied by and eaten with bread such as naan or chapati. Since I had neither parsley or coriander leaves, I topped it off with some yoghurt and a couple of sliced mild chillis for photographic purposes, and because I’d be doing that anyway once I got round to eating the photo props.

It was excellent.

Here’s that masala – it’s worth trying because it doesn’t include fenugreek so doesn’t have the typical “curry” taste or smell:

• 3 Tbsp coriander seed
• 2 Tbsp black peppercorns
• 2 Tbsp cumin seed
• 1 Tbsp caraway seed
• 1 tsp mustard seed
• 1 dozen curry leaves
• 6 dried hot bird’s eye chillies.

Toast all of these in a dry pan until they colour slightly and smell toasty and fragrant, then grind with a pestle and mortar, spice mill or coffee grinder reserved exclusively for spices. (Once you’ve drunk coffee from a grinder previously used for hot chillies, you’ll know why a separate one is a good idea.)

If you can’t get all of these as whole spices, combine ground ones in the same proportion. Both variants make more masala than you’ll need for one recipe, so put the rest in a sealed container, store it in a cool dark place and use it within a couple of months.