Recipe Tuesday - Mung Bean Curry

Tonight, I cooked something that I haven’t cooked since October:  Mung Bean Curry.  It used to be such a regular in my repertoire that for years I never had to check the recipe before I cooked.  In fact, I’m surprised that I’d never shared it on the blog.  

This is one of those recipes that came off the back of the packet.  I’ve been cooking it for 30+ years.  I don’t remember why we had a packet of mung beans in the cupboard - Dumbo, the long-ago ex, bought them and made something unmemorable with about half the packet -  but, I do remember noticing this recipe on the back and deciding to give it a go.  I saved that plastic packet for years and referred to it regularly.  Sadly, it disappeared after we packed up the kitchen for building works back in 2012.  This is from memory.

Mung Bean Curry (serves 4)

Ingredients

175g/6oz dried mung beans - not split mung dhal, but the whole bean

1L approximately of boiling water

1 tablespoon oil

1 medium sized onion, chopped

1 large clove garlic, garlic

100-150g mushrooms, sliced

2 peppers/capsicums, sliced

1 medium carrot, halved lengthwise and sliced

1 cup plain yoghurt

Spices

1 teaspoon ground chilli (or to taste)

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon turmeric 

1 teaspoon corn flour

Pinch of salt

Bulgar Wheat (see notes below)

1 cup bulgar wheat

2 cups boiling water

Pinch of salt

Method:

1. Start by cooking your mung beans:  pour them into a sieve and rinse off any dust with cold, running water.  Then place in a saucepan, cover with sufficient boiling water to ensure that there’s 2.5cm/1inch of water to cover the beans, bring to the boil and simmer for approximately 25 minutes or until soft.  Once cooked, drain the beans.  While the beans are cooking, get on with preparing the rest of the dish.
2. In a small ramekin, assemble the spices.  Add a couple of tablespoons of cold water and mix to a paste.
3. Heat the oil in a large saucepan or frying pan.  Gently fry the onion until it is soft and glassy.
4. Add the mushrooms, peppers and garlic.  Fry until soft.
5. Stir in your spice paste.  Fry until the aroma rises and then fold in the yoghurt.  Add the carrot and keep stirring, until heated through.  Switch off until the mung beans are cooked.
6. When the mung beans are cooked and drained, stir them into the curry mixture.  Bring back to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes.
7. Meanwhile, rinse out the saucepan used for the mung beans in hot water.  In it, combine 1 cup of bulgar wheat, with 2 cups of boiling water and a pinch of salt.  Bring back to the boil.  Cover and switch off.  Leave undisturbed for 15 minutes or until all the water is absorbed..
8. Serve.

Notes:

• My favourite “filler” these days is bulgar wheat, instead of rice.  Yes, it’s more expensive BUT it has 3 advantages:  1) it is even easier to cook (see point 7 above); 2) it bulks out to a larger volume than rice, so I only need to use 1 cup instead of 1.5 for 4 portions; 3) it has 8 times the fibre and 4 times the protein of brown rice!
• If you want to serve this curry with rice:  use 1.5 cups of white/basmati rice together with 3 cups of boiling water, cover, boil for 2 minutes, switch off and leave for 15 minutes or until all the water is absorbed.

Enjoy!

- Pam

Sophie Dahl’s Dhal

I am so going to reek of garlic tomorrow!  Dinner tonight was a sweet potato dhal that involved an awful lot of sliced garlic fried in garum marsala.  The first time I made it, the garlic turned out surprisingly nutty; tonight, not so much.  Oops!

This recipe comes from the BBC television series, The Delicious Miss Dahl, broadcast in 2010.  I think I only caught one episode and, in it, Sophie Dahl talked about working in Bollywood and then went on to make this recipe as an example of the food she lived on while in India.  When it was published on the BBC website, it was called “Sophie’s dhal with lemon and saffron spiced rice” and included instructions to make your own garum marsala. The BBC only had rights to publish the recipe for a year, or I’d link to it here.  This is my version.  I have never actually made the lemon and saffron spiced rice; I usually just serve it with plain rice, made using the rice trick.  Tonight, I made it with bulgar wheat instead of rice, using the same quantities and method.

This was costed on the cheapest versions of the ingredients that I could find on the Tesco website.  I have allowed 10p for the oil and 10p for ground spices and bay leaves.  It works out at £2.94 for 8 generous servings, which is cheap enough that I’m going to tag it with <£2Dinners.

Sophie Dahl’s Dhal - serves 8

Ingredients

Sweet potato

500g sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into rough wedges (55p)

3 tablespoons oil

Tarka

2 tablespoons oil

1 large onion, sliced (20p)

3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced (5p)

1 red chilli, sliced (10p)

2 teaspoons garum marsala

2 inch piece fresh root ginger, peeled & chopped/grated (19p)

Dhal

500g split red lentils (90p)

1.5 litres boiling water

1/8 teaspoon ground asafoetida

1/8 teaspoon ground turmeric

2 bay leaves

2 large handfuls spinach (30p)

Rice

2 cups Basmati rice (30p)

4 cups boiling water

Method

1. Place the oil for the sweet potato into a roasting dish.  Place in the oven and preheat the oven to 200C.
2. Place your chopped sweet potatoes in a saucepan, cover with boiling water, bring back to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes or until soft.
3. When the sweet potato has finished simmering, drain well.  Remove the baking dish from the oven and carefully toss the sweet potato in the hot oil, until as much as possible is coated.  Try to get each wedge of sweet potato standing separately in the baking dish.  Grind over salt and pepper.  Bake in the oven for 20 minutes or until crispy.
4. Meanwhile, place your lentils in a larger pot, cover with 1.5 litres of boiling water, add the asafoetida, turmeric and bay leaves.  Bring back to the boil, turn down to a simmer and simmer for 15-20 minutes or until almost all the water is absorbed and the dhal is soft.
5. Once you have put your sweet potato in the oven, do your rice, reusing the saucepan.  Combine your rice with double the quantity of boiling water, cover, bring back to the boil and boil for 2 minutes.  Turn off and let sit for at least 15 minutes or until all the water is absorbed and the rice cooked.  
6. At the same time, make your tarka.  Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a frying pan and gently fry the onion until soft.  Stir in the garlic, ginger, chilli and garum marsala and fry for another 3-5 minutes or until soft, stirring continuously or your spices may burn.  Remove from heat and leave until the lentils and sweet potato are cooked.
7. When everything is cooked, stir the spinach, tarka, and sweet potato into the lentils and serve with the rice.

 

- Pam

Recipe Tuesday: Not quite Mr Julian's Dhal

There are a thousand recipes for dhal.  I like dhal.  For me, it's an ideal comfort food: tasty, filling, healthy/nutritious, cheap and kind to my irritable-bowel-syndrome-gallbladder-free-long-suffering gut.  

To me, the smell of yellow dhal cooking is the smell of the Middle East.   In 2012, when we were visiting Oman, we dropped in on my brother-in-law for lunch and "Mr Julian", the chef in the officers' mess fed us yellow dhal and roti for lunch.  It's what BIL and his colleagues ate every day.  I begged "Mr Julian" for his recipe, which he kindly and bemusedly wrote down for me.    He seemed quite taken aback that I would want something that simple but we explained that it was something most Brits didn't know how to cook.  (Incidentally, I am using parentheses because I'm fairly certain that "Mr Julian" isn't his real name, but instead is an anglicanisation.  I think he was Bangladeshi.)

When I got back to the UK, I attempted to make Mr Julian's Dhal.  The first stumbling block was that he'd written "curry powder" on the spice list, which left me mystified until BIL explained it was Garam Marsala.  (I don't use commercial curry powder and didn't have a clue what blends are available in Oman.) Once that mystery was solved, I made a couple of batches then added the recipe to that precious pile of paper and plastic where all loose recipes ended up, on the corner of the bookcase in the old, pre-renovated kitchen. 

 A few months ago, I thought I'd have another go.  I really fancied eating dhal for lunch.  Sadly, I hunted high and low and couldn't find the precious slip of paper with the recipe.  I went through the cookbooks; it wasn't tucked inside.  I tried a couple of recipes from the Curry Club cookbooks but they weren't the same (one required so many whole peppercorns that even my spice tolerant stomach complained).  In the end, I resorted to the recipe that was on the back of the Natco Chana Dal packet, adding garam marsala and veg at salient points and hoping for an approximation of Mr Julian's Dhal.  I remember his boiled the dhal with turmeric and a tablespoon of garam marsala, but I can't remember what other spices he used, if any.  This, though, was nearly as good and I made a pot of it for my lunches for work this week:-

(Almost) Mr Julian's Dhal

Makes 7 portions.  Total cost £1.97, assuming 5p for the cost of the bulk-bought spices

 

Ingredients

300g yellow split peas/Chana dhal. (67.5p)

1tsp turmeric

1tblsp garam marsala

1/2 tsp salt

Boiling water

 

The Tarka

1 tbsp. oil (3p)

1 onion sliced (12p)

100-150g mushrooms, sliced (25p)

1 large clove garlic, crushed (5p)

1 tsp ground chilli 

2 cups frozen mixed veg (30p)

1 x 400g can chopped tomatoes (25p)

Optional:  A handful of fresh spinach leaves or leftover rocket from a bag of salad leaves. (25p)

Optional:  a tblsp or so of fresh coriander leaves, chopped 

 

The Rice

1.5 cups basmati rice (12p)

3 cups boiling water

 

Method

 

1.       Pour the dhal into a sieve and rinse well in fresh water.  It doesn't need soaking..

2.       Boil the kettle.  Meanwhile, measure the dhal in a jug, make a note of the volume measurement and pour into a saucepan.  Add twice as much boiling water.  (The packet said to use 1 litre of water for 300g of dhal but that took considerable simmering to be absorbed..)

3.       Stir in the turmeric, salt and the garam marsala, bring back to the boil and simmer until the dhal is soft and most of the liquid is absorbed.  Stir regularly.   The dhal will be cooked after 20-25 minutes but it takes a while until the liquid is almost gone.  (Note:  when it reaches the point where it starts to stick to the bottom of the pan, that’s when it’s ready.)

4.       Meanwhile, make your Tarka:

a.       Heat the oil in a frying pan and fry the onion until soft. 

b.      Add the mushrooms and continue frying until most of the water they make has evaporated.  Then stir in the crushed garlic.

c.       Have your frozen mixed veg ready on the side.    Sprinkle the chilli over the contents of your frying pan and stir fry until the aroma rises.  Stir in the frozen veg and fry until all their water has evaporated.

d.      Add the tomatoes and fry until most of their liquid is gone, stirring occasionally.  Stir in the spinach and coriander if using and cook until wilted.  Switch off until the dhal is ready.

5.       To make the rice using the absorption method:-

a.       Boil the kettle again.

b.      Measure out your rice and put in a saucepan with a tight fitting lid.

c.       Cover with twice as much boiling water.

d.      Bring back to the boil and boil for 2 minutes.  (Use a timer.)

e.      Switch off the heat.  Cover the saucepan with its lid and leave to sit for at least 12 minutes.

f.        It is now ready to serve.

6.       When your dhal is ready, stir in the tarka.  Taste and season as necessary.  Serve over rice.

 

Notes:

• As you can see from the photo, this is great for lunch boxes for work.  It freezes well.  Defrost and then zap for 2 minutes in the microwave or until piping hot.
• Instead of using frozen mixed veg, you can use any leftover cooked vegetables you have to hand.  This works well with grilled peppers or roasted mix veg (e.g. Sliced onions, mushrooms, peppers, courgettes tossed in oil and herbs and roasted for half an hour or so in a hot oven).