Recipe: Spinach and Roasted Tomato Dahl
Indian spiced dahl is one of the most versatile dishes you can make
It’s easy to find many Indian Dahl recipes online, all delicious in their own unique way. But to produce an outstanding batch, care during the cooking process is essential. Slow cooking the onions, frying spices until fragrant but not burning them, keeping the lentils with bite and not turning them into mush through over-stirring – these are all important factors when standing at the pot.
Adding flavour to Dahl
Once your cooking technique is under control you can start adding different flavours with each new pot as dahl is a very adaptable dish. Green beans, roasted pumpkin, additional spices, roasted garlic or garnishes such as flavoured yoghurt or marinated feta.
Spinach and Roasted Tomato Dahl
In this recipe of Spinach and Roasted Tomato Dahl, roasted tomatoes and zingy lemon juice give the lentils a juicy and fresh Mediterranean touch. Serve with yoghurt, rice, naan or Homemade Flatbreads.
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Spinach and Roasted Tomato Dahl
Ingredients
- Cooking oil or ghee
- 1 white onion chopped
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1 heaped tbsp ginger minced
- 1 green chilli chopped fine
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 200 g small Romana tomatoes or regular tomatoes chopped into quarters
- 300 g yellow lentils
- 1 litre vegetable stock
- 150 g baby spinach
- 2 tbsp butter or ghee
- 1/2 lemon for juice
- Yoghurt for serving or vegan yoghurt
Spices
- 1 tbsp cumin seeds
- 2 tsp coriander seeds
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 2 tsp garam masala
- 2 tsp dried fenugreek leaves
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 220°C
- Rub tomatoes in a little oil, season with salt and then roast for 15 – 20 minutes or until soft and collapsed.
- Dry roasted cumin and coriander seeds for 10 – 30 seconds or until they release a fragrant smell. Transfer to a mortar & pestle and grind down into a powder. Add garam masala, fenugreek leaves, and turmeric. Blend together then remove 1/3 of the spice mix and set aside.
- Heat oil (or ghee) in a medium saucepan or cast iron pot and fry onions until soft. Add garlic, ginger and green chilli and cook a further minute.
- Next, add the 2/3 spice mix and stir around the post for 30 seconds. Spices should always stay hydrated, so add a splash more oil if needed to keep them moist.
- Place roasted tomatoes into the pan and cook down gently until reduced. Add tomato paste and on low heat let the paste cook down, darken and become thick and sticky.
- When the tomatoes have melted into the sauce, add the red lentils along with vegetable stock. Combine well and bring to the boil. Once boiling turn to simmer, cover and cook gently for 25 – 30 minutes. Occasionally check to ensure the lentils don’t cook too fast. They should be soft but retain bite and texture. If your stove heat is too aggressive and the dahl starts to dry out, add a small amount of water to loosen it, but be very gentle stirring it though so you don’t turn the dahl to mush.
- Remove the lid and gently place baby spinach on top of dahl. Replace the lid and remove pot from heat. Let the dahl rest for 5 minutes so the steam inside the pot can wilt the spinach. Remove the lid, add a big squeeze of lemon juice and gently stir the wilted spinach through the dahl. Taste and season with salt if needed.
- To finish the dahl, melt the two tablespoons of butter in a small pan. Add the reserved 1/3 spice mix and cook for 10 seconds in the butter. Drizzle spiced butter over the dahl.
- Divide between bowls and serve with yoghurt and flatbreads or naan.
Where to source ingredients:
Spices can be purchased online at:
UK: Spice of India
USA: Desi Basket
