Red Lentil Dal of Love

A rich, flavoursome bowl of red lentils, tomatoes and a top combo of spices that you will hopelessly fall in love with.

Prep Time: 5

Cook Time: 25

Total Time: 30

Servings: servings

Ingredients

1½ cups (300 g) red lentils
2 cups (500 ml) water
1 can (1 can) chopped tomatoes or 4 large, ripe tomatoes, finely chopped
1 tbsp (1 tbsp) turmeric
1 tbsp (1 tbsp) brown sugar
½ tsp (½ tsp) salt
2 tbsp (2 tbsp) coconut oil
1 tbsp (1 tbsp) black mustard seeds
20 (20) dried curry leaves
1 pinch (1 pinch) asafoetida
1 (30 ml) lime juiced

optional spices (see recipe notes)

1 tsp (1 tsp) paprika
1 pinch (1 pinch) cayenne pepper
1 tsp (1 tsp) garam masala
1 tsp (1 tsp) curry powder

For serving

1 tbsp (1 tbsp) fresh coriander

Instructions

Rinse and drain the red lentils three times.
The rinsing water should clear up a bit after the third time. I like to do this step in the cooking pan, for simplicity. Optionally, soak lentils for 15 minutes before rinsing.
Place lentils in a saucepan, add the water, chopped tomatoes and turmeric, and any optional extra spices (see ingredients). Bring to a boil, then simmer on low-medium heat for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally to keep from catching.
Stir in brown sugar and salt, continue to simmer for another 10 minutes.
In the meantime, fry the whole spices: Melt the coconut oil in a small saucepan (or tiny skillet for frying spices if you happen to have one) on medium-high heat.
Add curry leaves and mustard seeds to the coconut oil. Fry them until the mustard seeds start to pop. Watch out to not burn the spices by cooking them for too long or too hot!
Add the pinch of asafoetida to the frying spices, and gently sway the pan to disperse it. Swiftly pour the whole contents of the small pan into the simmering lentils and stir to combine. The hot oil might sizzle loudly when added to the lentils, which is completely normal.
Juice the limes, add the juice to the lentils and stir it in. Briefly, bring to boil one last time for a minute and remove from heat.

Serve

The Red Lentil Dal of Love is most tasty when you let it cool down a bit to eating temperature before serving. Trust me on this!
Sprinkle with fresh coriander and serve with rice, naan bread or popadoms.

Notes

I first learnt this recipe years ago from an Indian cooking book, and developed my own version of it over time. The optional spices are not necessary, but I like to add them when I can. The paprika and cayenne pepper make up for the omission of a fresh chili from the original recipe. The curry powder and garam masala add some great extra flavour. I like to create variation from time to time, because we eat this red lentil dal an awesome lot of times. Ginger and garlic powder also make great additions.

Frying spices

In Indian cooking, whole spices are often fried in fat (traditionally in ghee), before they are combined with the rest of the dish. This brings out the most flavour. You want to use the smallest pan you have available for this, so the spices can swim in the fat. There are specialised, tiny spice pans that actually are more like a spoon. We just use our smallest sauce pan or a tiny frying pan for this.

Pressure cooker

You can easily make this Red Lentil Dal in a pressure cooker, which saves tons of time and energy, while preserving more nutrients.
Simply fry the whole spices at the beginning, then add all the ingredients together. Bring to simmer whilst stirring, close the lid and cook under high pressure for 5 minutes. Let pressure release naturally.
Or just chuck ALL the ingredients in from the beginning. Still tastes absolutely awesome!

Nutrition

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