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Spinach Dal

Nutritious, cheap and tasty, Spinach Dal is based on yellow split peas and is finished with a spicy butter or oil tarka. Add more water to eat as a soup, less for a thicker, curry-style dal.

Once the split peas are cooked, the dal is made in around 30 minutes.

Course Soup, Main Course, Lunch
Cuisine Indian, Vegetarian, Vegan, plant-based
Keyword soup, lentil soup, split peas
Prep Time 25 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Soaking time 30 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 55 minutes
Servings 4
Author Moorlands Eater

Ingredients

For the split peas

  • 200 g split yellow peas
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 1 tsp ground turmeric

For the dal base

  • 30 g ghee or coconut oil or 1 tbsp any oil + 15g butter
  • 2 tsp cumin seeds
  • 2 tsp black mustard seeds
  • 1 medium onion finely chopped
  • 6 cloves garlic finely chopped
  • 2 green chillies finely chopped
  • 8-10 g ginger finely chopped or grated
  • 3 medium tomatoes deseeded, finely chopped
  • 200 g fresh spinach, any tough stems discarded roughly chopped
  • 40-50 g bunch of coriander roughly chopped (chop stems too but keep separate)
  • 2 tsp garam masala
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 1 tsp ground fenugreek
  • ½ tsp ground turmeric
  • ½ tsp ground black pepper
  • ½-1 tsp chilli powder or flakes
  • salt
  • 150-300 ml water
  • ½ lemon juice only

For the tarka

  • 15 g ghee, coconut oil, or 50:50 butter and any oil
  • 1 tsp cumin seeds
  • ½-1 tsp chilli powder or flakes

Instructions

Cook the split peas

  1. Put the split peas in a large heatproof bowl.

    Pour over boiling water from a kettle and leave to soak for 30 minutes.

    Drain, rinse, drain again, then transfer the split peas to a saucepan.

    Cover with at least twice their depth of water and stir in the ground coriander and turmeric.

    Bring to boil then turn down to a simmer. Cook until very soft, adding more water if necessary (35-50 min).

    Drain off any excess water and set aside.

    Can also be cooked in a pressure cooker (15-25 min).

Make the dal base

  1. Heat the ghee, coconut oil or oil and butter mixture in a large frying pan over medium high heat.

    Stir in the cumin and mustard seeds and cook until they pop and sputter.

    Reduce the heat to medium then add the onion and cook until it's becoming soft and translucent (10-12 min).

    Stir in the garlic, chillies and ginger and cook for 2 min, stirring often and making sure they don't burn.

    Stir in the tomato and cook for 2 minutes.

    Add the spinach, plus the coriander stems and approximately ½ of the coriander leaf. Cook for 2 minutes.

    Stir in the cooked split peas,1 tsp of the garam masala, the ground coriander, fenugreek, turmeric, black pepper, chilli flakes or powder, 1 tsp of salt plus 150ml of water (add more water for a thinner dal).

    Continue cooking and stirring until any rawness is gone from the spices (8-10 min).

    Add the remaining coriander and squeeze in the lemon juice. Taste and add more salt and/or garam masala if needed.

    Take off the heat.

Make the tarka

  1. Put the ghee, coconut oil, or butter and oil in a small saucepan over medium high heat.

    Add the cumin seeds and chilli powder or flakes.

    Sizzle the spices for 1 minute then remove from the heat.

  2. Pour the contents of the saucepan over the Spinach Dal, stir through and serve.

    Leftovers can be stored in the fridge for 2 days.