Guest Chef Time!

by

This week’s guest chef is a blogger I enjoy and a writerwoman I admire.

Somehow Monica seems to juggle it all *and* keep things creative in the kitchen AND make time to share her wisdom with us MizFits.

I aspire to a mere portion of what she does (and to the lentil dal below).

I was a pretty lucky kid. Every Sunday afternoon, my family would take us out for Indian food at the local curry house. I would marvel at the little silver bowls filled with delicious flavors that were so heavenly and mysterious that I never thought I could reproduce them at home. In recent years, however, I’ve been fortunate to meet several lovely women from India who taught me a few tricks and these days, I generally prefer my own curries to anything I can get at a restaurant.

Unlike most restaurant indian food, home-cooked curries are anything but a grease-fest. In fact, most dishes are highly nutritious and provide a great source of protein, especially for vegetarians. To demonstrate, I bring you my go-to recipe for Indian Lentil Dal. It’s easy to make and tastes better than most dals I’ve had at restaurants. You should be able to find most ingredients at the grocery store, though you may need to find an Indian grocer for the curry leaves (it’s worth the effort, trust me). This dal is great with basmati rice, but if you’re trying to cut carbs, try it with some raw shredded cabbage and a squeeze of lemon juice.

INDIAN LENTIL DAL
Serves 6

2 tsp olive oil
1 Tbsp cumin seed
1 Tbsp mustard seed
10 curry leaves (optional)
1-inch knob of ginger, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 onion, diced
1 tomato, diced
2 cups dry red lentils, washed
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 handful of spinach, finely chopped
salt to taste

1. Heat the oil in large saucepan. Add the cumin seed, mustard seed
and curry leaves and fry on medium heat until the seeds start to pop.

2. Add onion, garlic and ginger and cook until onion is soft (not
brown).

3. Add tomato, lentils, turmeric and enough water to cover. Simmer
until the lentils fall apart into a mush, adding more water if
necessary.

4. Add the spinach and salt and cook until the spinach is wilted.

Thanks Monica! I appreciate you making time for us and shall return the favor by (waitforit) entering my kitchen and attempting to emulate you.

Anyone else up for the challenge?

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Comments

  1. Ooooh this looks delicious. I love dal.

    I might make this next week sometime… this week’s meals are all already planned out!

  3. Thanks so much for sharing my favorite dal! I’d love to hear about how it turns out from anyone who gives it a try. More so, I’d love to SEE it. (I’m ALMOST as obsessed with taking pictures of food as I am with eating it!) So if you try this, take a photo and send it to me. I could turn it into a collage, maybe one of those motivational posters. Inspired by dal. Yeah. That’s what I’m talking about!

  4. Hmmm, interesting.

    Are lentils supposed to be crunchy? I’ve tried them before and sometimes the “mouth feel” is weird to me – like they are crunchy and shouldn’t be.

    Ladies?

  5. we all know I am NOT the one to respond to this but I shall.

    when I have made them YES.

    which leads me to think the answer should be NO.

    anyone else?

    M.

  6. the answer is NO. red lentils like the ones I use in this dal recipe actually fall apart they’re so mushy. others hold their shape better (like green lentils) but they should be VERY soft, like a cooked bean. if they turn out crunchy then you haven’t cooked them long enough!

    I should have added that it takes about 20-30 minutes of cooking for the red lentils to turn to mush.

  9. I love to cook, but them lentils took me down. Thanks for the nod toward bean-like mush.

    : ^ )


  11. *points upward*
    Go visit Kim when you have a moment.

    At 90plus pounds DOWN it is complete & utter blogspiration.

    M

  12. Oh, where was this recipe earlier this week??? On Monday I attempted to make my own curry with very little curry knowledge. It was basically just me, tofu, some veggies, a can of lite coconut milk and curry powder. Oh, and it turned out kind of bland so I just added tons of crushed red pepper. If something doesn’t taste right I usually just make it spicy. Then you can barely tell.

    Rambling…

    I’m excited to try this recipe! There must be power in those curry leaves cause the powder I have is weak!

  13. I’m up to the challenge! I think this may be Monday’s supper. This dal recipe is so much more healthy than the last Indian dish i made (chicken tikka masala), which used an entire carton of heavy cream. I stood there in the grocery aisle staring at the calorie count on the carton, paralyzed with calorie fear. In the end, I went with the cream but vowed to make alterations to the original recipe the next time, calling the first batch an experiment in the name of food. I needed the control group, right?

    I think I even have some red lentils in my cabinet!

  15. & for those of you interested in ordering takeout after yet another home-cooked Indian meal hath been deemed inedible—please to swing by MizFit’s kitchen.

    completely. totally. and WHOLLY. why I welcome all your guest chef posts (thanks again Monica).

    email me if youre interested in climbing on board!

    Miz.

  17. I love Indian food! I’ll have to make this soon. And thanks also for the Manjula’s Kitchen link; thats really great:)

  18. This recipe sounds doable! I thought it’d be more complicated than this. I have an Indian grocer a 10 minute walk away so how lucky am I? Will have to be daring & try this.

  19. Mmm…totally worth a try…I’ve tried a similar creation with green lentils and curry powder before and it turned out ok…but this recipe looks devine, I can’t wait to try it. My previous attempt I served over quinoa (a high protein grain) and it was REALLY good. I just wanted to throw that out there as an option to go with the lentils 🙂

  20. Okay, I’m a mega-picky eater and I’m very cautious about comparatively exotic foods…but I have to say this recipe looks like something I could both make and eat. I even have lentils in the pantry that I’ve been pondering how to use…

    And there’s even an Indian food store next to our office – I can see it out my window. Curry leaves should be almost literally within my reach. (I’d have to reach a LOT, but, you know.) Clearly, it is meant to be. I must make the attempt.

    V.

  21. This sounds so good. Where would someone get curry leaves? I love to make Indian food but have never heard of those and imagine without them it just wouldn’t be the same!

  23. I’ve never had Dal (heck, I’ve never even heard of it!), but I LOVE lentils and this recipe just sounds yummy. If it ever stops pouring today, I’m heading out to do me some food shopping for the ingredients!!

    Susan
    http://www.catapultfitnessblog.com

  24. This does sound excellent! The Bag Lady will have to find some curry leaves…. (*knew you should have planted more stuff in the garden…grumble grumble…where the hell are you gonna find curry leaves around here? Sheesh*)

  27. 1. I am SO making this. I love Indian food! Love curry. Love lentils.
    2. Monica — thanks for the recipe and thanks for the link to Manjula’s Kitchen.
    3. fitarella — THANKS for alerting us to the GUEST POST!!!!!!!!

  28. Dropped my baby at camp yesterday and won’t see or talk to him for 12 days. SAD. Maybe curry will make me feel better…

  31. did someone just 911 for BEEF JERKY?

    Im on my way.

    *turns on blaring siren & flashing lights and screeches out of garage*

    M.

  32. Yummy…Monica, I love Manjula too.

    Tonight I am having this dal, +3 more tomatoes, – the spinach (no spinach at home, no will to grocery shop) = excited!

    Mizfit, thanks as always for your guest chefs…I somehow had missed seeing Monica’s great blog before!?!?! Going on my blogroll as we don’t speak…

  35. Love love love Indian food. Thanks for the recipe. I’ll have to wait a while to make it as all my kitchen stuff is packed or on its way to a box shortly. Maybe I’ll make it first when I get unpacked. Thanks again!

  36. Ooo, that looks tasty. I’m not normally a huge lentil fan, but I’ll eat anything with that much ginger in it! Ha!

    Thanks for the recipe!

  37. looks yummy! I just made lentil soup last night and it was so rich and thick with lentils and flavor, the family didn’t miss the meat. I also chopped up zucchini and carrot very fine with my homeade tomato sauce……the kids didn’t even realize there was veggies in it!

    We are trying to do several meatless nights a week and have cut down to having red meat only once a week.

  40. It breaks my heart that curry leaves are such a mystery to us westerners! Yes, you should be able to find dried curry leaves at most Indian grocery stores. They are SO good… you’ll start throwing them into all of your Indian dishes. They are much like bay leaves in that they impart a subtle underlying flavor to your dishes… you may even start using them instead of bay leaves in non-Indian dishes, too!

    If you can get your hands on fresh bay leaves, they are also good in sandwiches and salads and such.

  42. I LOVE lentils. My family hates them, but I love them so much that I am actually going to try this one. They can eat cereal.

    Thank you!

  44. omigosh, I love dal/Indian food!! 🙂

    Have you ever been to a Govinda’s restaurant? it’s entirely vegetarian and run by the Hare Krsna’s – an Indian religion. their food is so amazingly good.

    have a great day!

  51. Chandra, I love love LOVE Govinda’s. Everything about it. Last time I was there they gave us free dessert, leftover from a festival they were hosting at Parliament. Mmmm.

  52. Yum, I am always one to want to try new things! Indian food is something that I really want to try but there are not a lot of stores around here that offers the ingredients…I guess next time I go into the city I will look for some!

  53. Thank you, very useful. I wasnt actually a big fan of Spinach for many years ( lie, I hated the stuff), but after marrying a vegetarian I kind of had to get used to it, and have slowly come to love the stuff. Spinach curry is undoubtedly my absolute favouritest! I even found adedicated spinach recipes website which is my new favourite site now, you should take a look!

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