Dhansak - Parsi stew
Dhansak is an iconic Parsi dish (See more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhansak ).
It is a hearty lentil and vegetable stew with subtle sweetness from the butternut squash and a freshness from the mint. It is a complete meal and can be made with various meats (my version here uses beef, but chicken dhansak is very common) or without any meat at all. It is rich and filling but has very little added fat.
It has many ingredients but it’s basically a stew so it’s mostly tossing it all in and cooking and then cooking some more!
Ingredients
1/3 cup masoor dal (pink lentils), washed and drained
1/3 cup toor dal (pigeon peas), washed and drained
1 medium butternut squash (roughly 2 lbs) - washed, peeled, diced
1 medium eggplant - washed and diced.
1 bunch fenugreek leaves (or 1/3 cup frozen)
1 bunch mint
3 Tbsp oil
2 medium onions (Tera Farm onions recommended!) - roughly diced
3 large cloves of garlic - roughly minced
Ginger - enough to get 1 Tbsp when minced
1.5 lbs cubed beef chuck
2 Bay leaf
1Tbsp ground black pepper
1 tsp Turmeric
1 tsp Salt (or to taste)
1 tsp Chilli powder (or more to taste)
4 green chillies (serrano, jalapeno, thai bird. Pick a variety that suits your palate)
4 medium tomatoes - diced
2 Tbsp tamarind paste or concentrate
3 Tbsp dhansak spice mix (see suggestions for putting together your own, below)
Method
Take a large heavy pot (I used my lovely large Le Creuset cast iron stew pot. It's perfect for this) and heat ~3 Tbsp oil on medium heat and when the oil is hot, add the onions, ginger and garlic.
Give it a good stir and wait a minute, then add the beef and allow it time to brown (if using chicken, both boneless and bone-in pieces are fine to use). Add the bay leaves, black pepper, turmeric, salt, chilli powder and diced green chillies. Cook on medium heat for 5 minutes, make sure your spices don't scorch.
.Add the washed and drained lentils, cubed butternut squash and eggplant, and 2 cups of water (or broth - adjust the salt if your broth is salty)
Cover and cook on medium heat, for about 10 minutes. Make sure there is enough liquid so nothing is sticking and add more water/broth if it is drying out or sticking to the base of the pan (at this stage, a friend called me so I reduced the heat to very low and talked to her for 40 minutes! Since I was cooking beef there was no harm done, but chicken could have disintegrated. If you're making a veggie version, you can cook it as long as you want).
Add the fenugreek and mint and tomatoes and cook some more. You want the lentils to be thoroughly cooked and the vegetables to be mushy.
Add tamarind concentrate and dhansak spice mix. Cook till well blended and taste and adjust for salt, pepper and water (add water if its too thick)
Optional step - Remove the chunks of meat and use your handy stick blender to mix the lentil/veggie/greens into a fragrant and fabulous thick sauce. Toss the meat back in.
Serve sprinkled with cilantro and with rice on the side. ENJOY!
Note - Since I was going to blend up the sauce, I didn't chop anything uniformly or finely and I didn't cut the mint and fenugreek at all - I just washed them and tossed them in. If you're not planning to blend, make sure your ingredients are bite sized and more or less uniform.
Dhansak masala -
Indian stores have a spice mix specifically for each curry/dish you can think of, but I generally mix up my own because I have a pantry full of all possible Indian spices. Here is what I used
4 tsp coriander
1 tsp ground mustard seeds
1/2 tsp ground star anise
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp red chili powder
1 tsp garam masala (i have my own which is a mix of roughly equal parts of clove/cinnamon/cardamom)
1 tsp poppy seeds
pinch nutmeg (Very important! Very few things are more catastrophic than too much nutmeg in your curry)
My blend is very low on the hotness scale, but that works for me. There is lots of black pepper and a little chili powder and green chilies added early on, so I felt less chili powder in my spice blend was wise! Also this maybe makes a touch more than my recipe calls for - store the rest or add it all in for a spicier dish.
-Seema