Dhal

After the tomato mac, I was only in the mood for light foods.  Beans and rice were sounding pretty good.  There were still a couple of Indian recipes I wanted to try out of the high school cookbook, both vegetarian.  I picked up some red lentils and opened the spice cabinet.

Indian food has a lot of spices, but they're on a theme.  The garlic and ginger paste is in nearly everything.  You can get a pre-mixed garam masala instead of measuring out 1/4 teaspoons of half the spices you own.

I do tend to find lentils bland.  The red ones are less muddy.  You can use any color of them for dhal.  All the spices in the recipe are there to brighten up the lentils, so don't balk at what appears to be heavy spice levels.

As usual, I'm not putting a chili in this.  Feel free to add a finely diced serrano, hatch, or jalapeño.

3/4 C lentils of choice
salt to taste
1 Tb butter or ghee
1/2 medium onion, diced
*3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2" length ginger, grated
*1 Roma tomato, diced
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp black mustard seed
1/4 tsp turmeric
Cilantro for garnish (optional)

1.  Rinse lentils and place in medium saucepan with 2 C lightly salted water.  Bring to a low boil, lower to a simmer, and cook until softened.  This will be about 15 minutes for red or yellow lentils, but at least 30 minutes for green.

2.  Grind garlic and ginger together into a paste.  Cook with onion in butter on medium heat until softened, about 5 minutes.  Add spices and tomato and continue to cook until tomatoes have completely broken down.

3.  Drain any water from the lentils.  Add cooked onion mix and stir to combine.  Serve garnished with cilantro, parsley, or Thai mint.

Difficulty rating  π