The lentil time cometh

Tomato dahl with onion tarka - not perhaps the prettiest of foods, but delicious.

I seem to remember Melinda joking near the start of this that if the early problems with getting food continued, our challenge might end up being how many things you could do with lentils. Things having settled down, we’re mostly been OK for fresh produce, but  depending entirely on deliveries, and with the delays and vagaries of those, this week, lentil time arrived.


It’s alright. I like lentils. In fact, just before all of this kicked off I re-discovered the humble red lentil, long neglected for the more glamourous and fashionable Puy. So what do you make with red lentils? Well, in my case, you make dahl. Firstly, a Nigel Slater dahl with the last of the beetroot, and then a proper store cupboard number, from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Even More Veg: or, as I think of it, in the style of Friends titles, The One In Which Hugh Goes Fully Vegan.  Recently, I’ve been trying to eat more vegetarian and vegan food, hence my investment in this book, and a few others I bought at the same time. Some of the other books have fallen by the wayside somewhat in these confined times, as they seem to require many ingredients, both fresh and exotic – doubly difficult as our local farmers market, The Goods Shed, our most reliable food source, is resolutely and admirably local. Fortunately, Hugh remains more down to earth.


The recipe(if you’re cooking for 2) goes like this:  Heat some oil, then add a bay leaf (if you have one; we have a large bay tree in the back garden, so we have a ready supply) then crushed garlic, and a teaspoon each of turmeric and ground coriander. Fry gently, then add half a tin of tomatoes, an let them simmer for ten minutes to reduce, crushing them a bit and stirring occasionally as you go. Then add 100g of lentils and 400ml water. Cook for 20-30 minutes, stirring regularly so it doesn’t stick and the lentils break down a bit. Hugh says it should be left to stand for ten minutes after cooking; I think this will result in cold dahl, so I just left it on a low heat while I made the tarka to go on top of it (not essential but definitely worth doing).


Heat some oil in a frying pan, then add another bay leaf (again, you could probably miss this out of you don’t have a ready supply) and some mustard seeds, cardamom pods, cumin seeds and chilli flakes – or whatever you have/fancy in the spicy seeds line. When the mustard seeds start to pop, then add sliced onion (red for preference) and cook until they are as you want them. Hugh says soft and lightly browned, I like mine a bit more crispy than that for this.  Serve the tarka on top of the dahl.

It’s bloody delicious, confined or otherwise.  

In case you are worried about my confined condition – I did serve these with saffron bread (from Sabrina Ghayour’s Bazaar, they probably deserve their own post at some point) and we have since had a delivery, so we are out of famine and back to feast.

Saffron bread. I'm really just teasing you with this.