and grains
Solutions to the problem of feeding nourishing meals to many mouths are found all over the world, and often come in the form of pulses and grains. The British are always surprised at the quantity of rice, dal, noodles or pasta consumed by individuals in Asia or southern Europe. In Asia the average annual consumption of rice per person is 80 kilos, for example, while in the West it is less than 5 kilos. While we generally seek protein from meat and dairy foods, no family in India goes without a daily dish of dal, made either with lentils, yellow split peas or chickpeas. These are the most valuable foods in terms of survival but the least expensive to buy.
The best of the kill
I admit having some trouble persuading my children to eat dal, although they enjoy the chickpea and tomato soup on page 37. I find that in our house we spend more on ingredients for the children’s suppers than on our own. It can sometimes feel as if Dominic and I, and anyone visiting, exist on pulses so that Jack and Lara can have their roast chicken and breaded white fish. I view this as one of my many failures as a mother who cooks – but it is also second nature to give your child the best of the kill, as it were. My mother used to put lentils on the table, to a horrified response from all her six children, but we gradually came round, one by one, and if you visited any of my siblings now you’d find pulses on the table at least once a week. Influence can be a very slow process.
BRAISED PULSES WITH SPICES, ONION AND BUTTER – DAL
There are dishes I often describe with the fondness I feel for a favourite piece of warm clothing. Tarka dal, a dish of lentils or peas, braised with buttery onions, a gentle mix of spices and herbs, is a caressing bowl of food. It is not just the low cost that makes it immaculate; dal takes little time to cook. It packs into one meal so much of the nourishment a person needs in a day and releases a slow trickle of energy, going a long way to prevent a ‘picker’ like me from raiding the bread bin in the middle of the afternoon. But it is also, and most essentially, just unutterably delicious to eat. I love recipes that build with colour and fragrance as they are made: the scent of the cumin as it simmers in foaming butter; the excitement and zing of ginger; the fruity heat of garlic which, when added, must not brown, and the transforming technicolor drama of turmeric.
I cook the dal separately, and keep a store in the fridge so I can make small quantities of freshly prepared dal when needed. (See page 383 – Halfway to a Meal.) There are various pulses and peas to choose from and some, like chickpeas, are best bought in cans simply because they take a long time to cook. As long as the pulse is hulled (the skin removed), it can be made into dal. The most economical are red and green lentils, which can be cooked quickly from scratch. Yellow split peas, which are also very cheap to buy, have a delicious flavour of peas but with none of the floury texture that I find makes other slow-cooked peas taste stodgy and unpleasant. Chickpeas, bought in the can, are a good beginner’s dal, being sweet-tasting and easy and cheap to buy. In India, Bengal gram, a type of small chickpea, is a very popular dal.
Spiced butter and yellow split peas
see PLATE 4
This is my version of tarka dal, inspired by a North Indian recipe. Use yellow split peas or choose another hulled dal or gram, or drained canned chickpeas. Tarka roughly translates as ‘spiced butter’, patiently cooked with the aromatic ingredients and onion for about 10 minutes without burning to allow all the flavours to bind together. Indian cooks view this as a very important part of perfecting the flavour of their food.
SERVES 4
250g/9oz yellow split peas
3 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons black mustard seed
1 tablespoon cumin seed
1 onion, finely chopped or grated
1–4 whole green chillies, deseeded and chopped
4cm/1½in piece fresh ginger, peeled and cut into matchsticks
3 garlic cloves, chopped
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
2 teaspoons garam masala
2 teaspoons ground coriander seed
5 large tomatoes, chopped
100ml/3½fl oz water
leaves from 4 sprigs fresh coriander, plus chopped stalks and roots extra melted butter, to serve
Put the yellow split peas in a pan and cover with approximately 1 litre/1¾ pints water. Boil for 40 minutes, skimming away the foam that rises to the top, adding more water if necessary. Drain in a colander and mash a little with a fork to break up the dal slightly. Set aside.
Melt the butter in the same pan and add the mustard seed and the cumin. Cook over a low heat – cumin burns quite easily – and then add the onion, chilli and ginger. Cook for about 3 minutes before adding the garlic, salt and spices, followed by the tomato. Add the water and cook for about 10 minutes. The contents of the pan should look glossy and be very fragrant. Stir in the dal (cooked yellow split peas), cook for another 10 minutes (add a splash more water if the dal seems a little dry), then add the fresh coriander and about 1–2 tablespoons extra melted butter at the end. Eat with rice or flatbreads. Sometimes I add a little chicken stock to make a soup.
This is a dish we eat all the time at home for lunch, with some Greek-style yoghurt or fresh goat’s curd, and usually with a few leaves of parsley scattered on top. It is not unlike the lentils my mother bravely put on the table when we were children, where they were received with the same enthusiasm as algebra homework. I am devoted to these lentils now, eating them often with roast meat, grilled fish – almost anything in fact. Ground coriander seed is my favourite spice. I love the way it binds the flavours of the braise, releasing a restrained earthiness.
SERVES 4
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 celery sticks with leaves, finely chopped
3 teaspoons ground coriander seed
250g/9oz Puy or other small lentils with blue-green speckled skins
salt and black pepper
Heat the oil in a saucepan and add the onion, garlic, celery and coriander. Cook over a low heat for about 3 minutes, then add the lentils. Cook for another 2 minutes, cover well with water and simmer for about 25–35 minutes until the lentils are just tender. Add more water if necessary, but be careful not to overcook the lentils. When they are done, tip the contents of the pan into a bowl and add a dash of olive oil to stop the cooking process. Season with salt and pepper. Eat hot or cold. These lentils will keep in the fridge for about 3 days.
Rice rescue
Rarely a week passes without my reaching for short-grain arborio rice to make a risotto. It is a dish that epitomises economy and eating for comfort. I made my first risotto in 1989. I had watched my mother make it, using Elizabeth David’s recipe from Italian Food. I bought a copy and followed the recipe to the letter, and it worked beautifully. David’s recipe, simple and true to the northern Italian original, yielded a pan of buttery rice, each grain having absorbed wine and chicken stock but without losing something to bite on. Risotto should never become like porridge. I added saffron to that first pan, and still love the way the exotic scent of the roasted crocus stamens combines with the Parmesan and butter. David issued the Italian rule that no more than two extra ingredients should be added, but that still leaves a vast risotto menu to explore. Two methods for making risotto can be found on pages 383–421, along with suggestions for added ingredients.
Polenta
I admit I