Chickpea Dhal
Description
This is a great introductory curry for any plant-based (or omni!) eaters that are new to cooking spices. The recipe is completely WFPB compliant. It's not the quickest recipe, but it's not particularly labour-intensive either - it just takes quite a while simmering to get the rich flavours.
Ingredients
- 2 onions
- 5 cloves roasted garlic or equivalent of garlic puree
- 2 dates
- 2 tbsp tomato puree
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 1 tsp paprika (sweet or hot, depending on how spicy you like your food!)
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp coriander spice
- Quarter tsp fenugreek powder
- Quarter tsp turmeric
- 125g dried red lentils
- 1 can or carton cooked chickpeas
- 25g ground almonds
Directions
- Chop the onions and place in a medium saucepan with the dates and tomato puree. Cover with water. Bring to boil then reduce to gentle simmer for about 20 minutes.
- Add all of the spices and the lemon juice. Blend with a stick blender until you get a pulpy texture sauce.
- Rinse your dried lentils. Add to the saucepan with your onion/spice sauce. Add enough water to cover all of the ingredients comfortably. Bring back to boil for 10 minutes with a lid on - this will give the lentils the kickstart to cook nicely. Reduce heat and simmer very gently for 30 minutes. Stir occasionally. If it starts sticking, add a little more water.
- Add the chickpeas and continue to gently simmer for a further 20 minutes. Stir regularly - it might start to stick if not stirred often enough, but you don’t want to add too much water at this point. Turn the heat off and add the ground almonds.
- Serve with a little black pepper.
