[Apologies that I have no photo with this post! The next time Dave makes this amazing dish, I will add a pic here.]
This is one of my favorite dishes from Dave. When he makes this, I divide it into five large servings and put four of them in the freezer. Serve with rice, pasta, or veggies. It’s also fantastic with scrambled eggs: think of it as a substitute for chorizo. (I typically add coarsely chopped spinach when I have it with eggs.)
Ingredients
- oil
- 1 small or 1/2 large red onion, roughly chopped
- 1 can fire roasted tomatoes
- 3 oz tomato paste
- garlic
- fresh chili (optional)
- ginger
- chicken chunks and/or stock
- 1 or 2 tbsp brown sugar
- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- a few drops of lemon or lime juice
- herbs and spices (see notes below)
- 1 cup red lentils, dry
- 1 carrot
- 1 stalk celery
Directions
Saute red onions in any healthful oil, with salt. Reduce heat and add garlic and ginger, taking care not to burn them. Add a can of fire roasted tomatoes and a few ounces of tomato paste to make it thick and tomatoey. Add the chicken chunks or stock, brown sugar, the acids, herbs and spices. If you’re using fresh chilies for heat, add them too.
Carefully adjust the trio of acids, salt, and sweetness to balance each other (this is one of the most important steps — unbalanced or insufficient acid/salt/sweetener leads to an insipid result). In the last few minutes, add the celery and carrots until they are crisp-tender (these provide two different sizes of texture).
The lentils are washed and gently cooked separately, uncovered, no salt, until just barely done. Don’t overcook. Add the barely-cooked lentils to the pot.
Fine-tune the ratio of acids/salt/sugar. Optionally fold in a tablespoon of unsalted butter or ghee.
Herbs and spices
I like a big fistful of Indian flavor in my dahl. Dave usually dry-roasts and then grinds a mix of fresh cumin seeds, nutmegs, star anise, and cinnamon sticks. He usually also adds one or more of: ground turmeric, coriander, cloves, cardamon, fenugreek, or bay leaf. Parsley is good too. Of course this dish deserves a bit of heat, but I am a bit of a spice-wimp. Dave adds a combination of black or white pepper, smoked paprika, and ground chili.