Happy New Year!
Have you made any new years resolutions?
How are they going so far?
We made a few and one of them is to eat more protein from vegetables instead of meat. So we have been researching bean, lentil, legumes etc. recipes and found a million different ones.
So now we are in the process of trying some of these recipes to see what we like and then share them with you.
Our first one, which by the way was a huge success, is Dhal made on red lentils and served with soft naan bread.
It is so much easier than we first anticipated and it tastes amazing.
There are different variations of Dhal depending on the regions in India, where the recipe originally comes from.
We went through a lot of different recipes and compared them and took the best from each of them and sort of made our own version of Dhal.
200 g (1 cup) red lentils, rinsed
8 dl (3 cups) water
4 large ripe tomatoes
1 medium onion, chopped finely
3 cloves of garlic, minced to a paste
1 teaspoon cumin powder or seeds
1 teaspoon sesame seeds, black or white
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 bay leaf
2 tablespoons lemon juice
A good handful of parsley, rinsed and chopped
Oil
Salt
Bring a pot of water to a boil. Slice an X in each tomato and when the water is boiling place the tomatoes in the pot for 1 minute. Then take them out with a ladle and place them in a bowl with cold water for 5-10 minutes.
Now you can easily take the skin of the tomatoes and cut out the stem. Mush them in the bowl or chop them coarsely, set aside.
In a large pot heat the water with the rinsed lentils and bring to a boil. Turn down to low heat and let simmer for about 10 minutes.
In the meantime, chop the onions and mince the garlic. Heat up the oil on a pan and fry the onions till translucent. Add the garlic and fry for a few minutes without browning the onions. Add the cumin, sesame seeds, turmeric and bay leaf. Mix well and let it fry for another minute or two.
The lentils should now be pretty soft, so transfer the onions to the pot and mix together.
Add in the tomatoes and lemon juice. Cook for another 5 minutes.
Add salt to taste.
When the Dhal is ready to serve mix in the chopped parsley, give it a good stir and serve in bowls with Naan bread or rice on the side.
We also made our own Naan bread for the Dhal, and we will give you that recipe in another blog post.
Now sit back, relax and enjoy your Dhal.
-Enjoy!
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