Dahl and potato bake
Although not made from homegrown ingredients, our dahl is so popular with the students, I thought I would post the recipe here. Also, lentils keep very well for a long time, providing it is stored in a air tight container and pests cannot get to it. This recipe can also be made with pigeon pea.
Put 2 cups of red lentils into a pot and add around 8 cups of water (if you use pigeon pea, soak it overnight first and rinse. You may wish to slightly sprout the pigeon pea by sitting the moist pigeon pea in a colander covered with a lid for around 24 hours. Pigeon pea will require a longer cooking period). Add a chopped onion, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp cumin, 1 tsp ground coriander, 1 tsp tumeric, 1 tsp fenugreek (seed or ground) and 1 tsp garam masala. Stir until all lentils are free in the water (none stuck to the bottom). Put on the stove and bring to a boil, stirring regularly. Simmer until the dahl looks semi smooth or smooth (pigeon pea may have a rougher consistency), depending how long you wish to simmer it for. Can be served hot with rice, bread, potato bake or other carb, or cold as a dip. In the picture above the dahl is served with potato bake which can be made as follows:
Potato bake:
Boil 1 – 1 1/2 kg of peeled potatoes until slightly less than firm. Cut into slices and let it cool. Mix up 4 eggs and 300ml cream, add sea salt to taste (I use around 1 tsp) and add a medium clove of garlic and a chopped spring onion. Put the potatoes into a baking dish, then cover it with the egg and cream mixture. Grate some cheese over the top, or add some feta cheese, then bake in a 180 degree C oven. The potato bake is ready when the egg and cream mixture is solid and cheese melted.
©2013 Zaia at the Permaculture Research Institute Sunshine Coast – Gluten free, vegetarian dahl with potato bake recipe.
Have you seen Linda Woodrow’s recipe for pigeon pea dahl? I’m still shelling mine in the hope that I get enough to try it out.
http://witcheskitchen.com.au/pigeon-pea-and-potato-dhal/
I did indeed get enough. And it was great, and as promised even better for lunch the next day. The process gave me a renewed appreciation of how we don’t appreciate grains and seeds enough. Even using the Lis Fekonia method of shelling the pigeon pea (putting them in a cloth bag and whacking the daylights out of them with a rolling pin) it was still a lot of work to get enough for a feed. I reckon I’d get really skinny if I had to do that every day….
Just made this Dahl for lunch with red lentils. Scrumptious! Thank you for sharing.
I’ve lived on Tom & Zaia’s Permaculture farm for 6 months for an internship. This Dahl dish was the most popular & most requested dish BY FAR.
Well worth adding this dish to your culinary repertoire. It tastes AMAZING.!