Cook, teacher, writer and food producer Bini Ludlow first learnt traditional Gujarati cooking from her mother at home in Bradford at the age of eight. We’re delighted that she’s shared her mum’s recipe for ondhwa, a vegetable cake of dal, as well as her first memories of eating dal.
Maunika Gowardham has contributed this recipe for Dal Khichdi – lentils and rice cooked with turmeric, garlic, chilli and curry leaves. “A classic dal khichdi is a hug in a bowl!”
Kalpna Woolf, founder of 91 Ways to Build a Global City, has contributed this recipe from her mum, along with its story. This dal can be either eaten as a one-bowl dinner or as a soup. It tastes even better the next days so make double the quantity.
A wonderfully comforting dal from Naomi Devlin’s Food for a Happy Gut. “Dal is a delicately spiced sauce made from split peas or lentils that can be either porridgey or thin as a soup, according to your whim. Split mung beans (moong dal) make the most easily digested dal, so if you’re adding pulses to your diet, this is a great intro dish.”
“This is one of my most treasured recipes: I crave it frequently and never tire of it. It’s a foolproof dish, robust and endlessly adaptable, and it yields a result far greater than the effort required to make it.”
Punj Rattani Dal, “Dal of Five Jewels”, is a dal fit for a feast, made of 5 different pulses – chana dal (split chickpea), toor dal (split pigeon pea), whole moong (mung bean), whole urad (black gram) and whole masoor (red lentil).
Best known as an accompaniment to fish and chips, mushy peas have much more to offer. Here’s Jenny Chandler’s recipe for simple but sublime classic mushy marrowfat peas, with a solution to achieving a rich green colour without food colouring, and suggestions for mouth-watering ways to serve them.
Dal Makhani is a rich Punjabi dal of urad gram (also known as whole urad beans or black lentils) and rajma (red kidney beans), rather than the split lentils or peas used for most dals. The name literally means “buttery dal”.