Mum’s Vegetarian Dahl

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Lisa Healey-Cunico

For my very first Green Kampong contribution, I have chosen my personal favourite recipe of all time, Mum’s Vegetarian Dhal. 

It’s Indian in its roots but is unashamedly Eurasian in this particular context – it also comes from a handwritten recipe journal that I began in ’98 which contains recipes that have been handed down through 3 generations of women in my family and are cheerfully written with titles like this one, which started originally as ‘Bacon Bones Dhal’ early last century by my great-grandmother, Mama Trilby.

The recipe has had it’s time with the porkers but thanks to me, has since dropped her use of ghee, coconut milk, chicken stock and of course, bacon bones.

Now, it uses organic products where possible and it begins very gently with:
 

PART 1:

~ 4 small shallots sliced thinly

~ 6 pieces of garlic sliced thinly (use your own garlic mojo for max or min effect)

~ 1 cinnamon stick

~ 2 green chillies sliced quite thinly

~ 2 (to 3) vegetable stock cubes (seek the path of least resistance I always say!)

~ 2 heaped tablespoon turmeric

~ 2 cups Red / Yellow lentils (use the small ones, they cook faster)
 

PART 2:

~ 10, quartered baby potatoes

~ 2 sliced carrots

~ 10 halved cherry tomatoes
 

PART 3:

~ 2 – 3 small curry pillay leaves

~ ½ cup frozen peas

Heat 2 tablespoons of your favourite organic olive oil in a medium sized saucepan and then add the shallots, garlic and green chillies to fry until you can smell their flavour. Include the cinnamon stick, the stock cubes and the turmeric. Add enough water to make the consistency pasty (2 tbsps of water should suffice), mix contents of saucepan for about 2mins and then add the lentils in and continue to stir for another 2 mins.

Next, add the boiled water – start with half a litre (top up according to your own preferred consistency – I advise not to make it too watery though), and once the water starts to boil again in the pot, add the potatoes, carrots and cherry tomatoes.

Since omitting the dreaded cholesterol inducing coconut milk (sorry Mama Ann), you can use half a cup of low-fat skimmed milk should you desire a slightly more authentic Eurasian style Vegetarian Dhal but this is completely optional.

After about 20mins of medium to low fire boiling (please stir every 5mins or less depending how big you like your fire), once the lentils and the potatoes are soft, you can lower the fire to simmer strength and add 2-3 small curry pillay leaf and do what my mother loves to do, is to drop in half a cup of frozen peas. Don’t ask me why, but this works. Still, this is an optional procedure.

Cover the saucepan and simmer for another 5mins on very gentle heat and leave it to stand for another 5mins after you’ve turned off the fire.

Add salt and black pepper to taste.

Serve with brown rice and you’re all set. I usually have it with my mum’s chinchalok – but you can have it with any of your usual happy condiments.

Bless Mama Trilby and Mama Ann (who thankfully doesn’t understand the internet and will never see this). By the time my own children start to watch me in the kitchen and begin to add and subtract to this recipe, I hope for a world where everything will be home-grown or at least bought locally, be harvested based purely on need and not greed and that not a single other pig will be killed for their bacon or their bones. Happy, Conscious Consumption.