We’ve all got a few dishes that feed our soul and make us feel safe, happy, and taken care of. These are our comfort foods. One of mine is dal. I love dal because it’s protein, curry, soupy, eaten over rice, and easy to make.
Tonight I made dal from a recipe in A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen: Easy, Seasonal Dishes for Family and Friendsby Jack Bishop. One of the nice things about this recipe is it’s topped by carmelized onions. Caramelized onions are one of my favorite things. I have never yet had too many caramelized onions.
Although I love dal, I don’t want to eat it for days. I halved all of the below recipes.
Dal:
2 Tbl canola oil
4 medium cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbl minced ginger root, minced
2 tsp curry powder
3.5 cups water
1 cup coconut milk
1.5 cups red lentils, well-rinsed
Salt
1/4 cup chopped cilantro (as always, if you don’t have it, that’s OK)
Heat the oil, add the garlic, ginger, and curry and stir for a minute. Add the lentils, water, coconut milk, and 1/2 tsp salt. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for about 20 minutes. Take the lid off to boil off extra liquid at the end. Add the cilantro and check for salt.
Meanwhile, caramelize 1 pound of sliced onions (about 3 medium), by melting 2 Tbl unsalted butter in a pan, add onions, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1/2 tsp sugar, and stir them occasionally, also for about 15 minutes.
Also meanwhile, make some basmati rice as follows: Rinse 1.5 cups of basmati. Melt 2 Tbl of canola oil in your rice pot, add the rice. Stir it around until the rice becomes fragrant. Stir constantly, otherwise it will burn. After about 3 minutes, add 2.25 cups water and 1 tsp salt. Simmer on very low for about 15 minutes.
Everything needs to cook for about 15-20 minutes and even though you can’t start everything simultaneously, unless you have 4 arms and are super-organized, that’s OK. In addition to its other qualities, dal is forgiving and an extra minute here or there on one or the other thing is fine.
When each element is done, assemble your meal in a bowl – rice, dal, onions.
When you need a sure thing, that will be done in half an hour, that will feed your soul and your stomach, have yourself some dal.
If this post seems uninspired, it’s because I’m wickedly hot and excessively humid. That’s why dal was such a good dish for me today (even though it’s in the winter section of the cookbook), because I needed a real meal, after several days of un-real meals, but I couldn’t make too much of an effort. And there you have it.
