Food Experiments: Dal

Time for a more lighthearted post. This one is about my cooking skills. My cooking skills have been mediocre in the past. But as a stay at home mom I have yearned to broaden and improve my cooking expertise and expand my recipe book. Nothing I’ve cooked in the past has been bad, just kind of boring.

The last year or so I have made it my mission to find some new recipes and try out some new foods. That was helped a lot when I started menu planning. More on that another time. We also decided to try to cut back on meat protein this year. Don’t get me wrong. We love the half a beef, half a hog, goat, chicken, etc in our freezer. We are fortunate to live in an area where good meat is accessible to us at good prices. However, my husband struggles with some heath issues. The more research I’ve done the more it seems to suggest incorporating more plant based protein meals may be helpful to him. In light of that, I’m trying to add one or two vegetarian meals into our week.

In my search for new recipes and different protein sources I have been strongly influenced by Indian and Bangladeshi recipes. Three and a half years ago we were given the opportunity to house a graduate student from Bangladesh. The smells of her cooking were delightful and so were the flavors. She used a lot of rice, lentils, chickpeas and delicious sauces. One of my favorites was pakoras. It is on my list for a future cooking adventure. They are fried chickpea flour patties with green chili, cilantro and onion to season. I already make a Japanese curry beef that reminds me of some of the flavors she used to cook with.

My inspiration for the following recipes was a package of red lentils I’d had in my lazy susan for several years. I figured there was no time like the present to see if I could use them. It was then I discovered dal, or lentil soup. Where has this wonderful soup been all my life! The red lentils, when cooked for 10 min, break down and make a saucy soup. Then you add any different variety of spices and maybe coconut milk.

Which seasonings depends on the type of dal you are making. From what I’ve read dal varies a great deal from region to region in India and Bangladesh. To date I have made two kinds of dal. Both of them were phenomenal. My only problems was that I needed to make a bigger batch. One of these recipes is wonderful as it is. The other was good, but was even better over rice.

It is important to note that you must use red lentils. They break down much differently in heat than the green lentils do. The red lentils also loose their color when cooked and turn green, so the end dish looks like you made it with green lentils. Lentils are a great source of protein and fiber.

https://www.nutritionvalue.org/Lentils%2C_raw%2C_pink_or_red_nutritional_value.html

The first recipe I used was a coconut apple ginger dal. It was amazing. The recipe was posted in bonappetite.com. I look for recipes that are simple and have rave reviews. We loved this one as is with some gluten free dairy free dinners rolls.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bonappetit.com/recipe/coconut-apple-ginger-dal/amp

The second I made just recently. I found it at The Wanderlust Kitchen blog. This one is more closely seasoned to a dal from the Bengali region of India. We loved this one over some yummy basmati brown rice. I omitted the tomatoes because of time and chili pepper because I value my taste buds. Sorry to all you spicy people. My husband is one of them, but I let him season his own. This recipe does require cumin seeds. I didn’t regret buying some to make this.

https://thewanderlustkitchen.com/indian-red-lentil-dal/9

Even my one and two year old likes the coconut apple ginger dal. How can I argue with toddler wants like that? These recipes made it to my regular menu planning. I can’t wait to find more!

I hope you enjoy these recipes as much as I did!