Hey everyone, Curtis here, listen, our what’s for dinner segments have been a real hit, but this week I’ve got a challenge for everyone. Our Heart Foundation’s Cook with Heart Challenge. What I’m going to ask you to do is really think about the food you're eating and how heathy it is, how healthy it is for our hearts, and today I have one that is absolutely delicious while being really good for ya. It’s called a Dal. Let’s start cooking. You start off with a bit of extra virgin olive oil, about a tablespoon. Pop that into the bottom of the pan, then of course, first things first onions.
A really cool thing about Indian food is how layered it is, there’s so many different spices and you’re not relying on salt, we always think of salt as seasoning, but that’s just one of them. You know we’re going to use coriander, cumin cayenne pepper and all of those flavours, all of those spices are going to season the dish.
Ok, once that onion has been softening for about 5 minutes, you throw in your garlic, your ginger and your chilli. It smells so good, instantly so good, and you can feel even in your eyes the aggressiveness of that chilli. Next we put in the spices, now this is an important part. You put the spices in early on because you want them to toast, you want to fill the room with their scent. Corriander and cumin they go in first and then cayenne pepper, this is the spicy one. Alright we’ve got a few minutes, ok, we’ve got a little bit of time to prepping our cauliflower and also washing our split peas. So now we’re getting down to the business end.
You go ahead and get you peas, I’m using those green peas, you can use yellow as well. Then what you’re going to do is use six cups of water. In it goes. You won’t believe it but these split peas will absorb all of that liquid. Drop your lid on and once it comes up to a simmer, you’re going to turn the temperature down, just to keep a really gentle simmer. It’s going to take forty-five minutes and then we’ll add our cauliflower. Of course if you want to add in even more veggies, carrots, pumpkin, you know, you name it, you can always add that in and it will be delicious. So we add the cauliflower, about twenty to thirty minutes and dinner will be cooked. So what I’ve gone ahead and done, I’ve thrown some rice in the rice cooker, that’ll be ready about the same time. The only thing left to add is this beautiful stuff, the spinach. So when someone says what’s for dinner, dal, you say dal, dal….
I’m gonna finish with a couple of sprigs of coriander over the dal. It’s super affordable, really easy to do, but most importantly ultra delicious. So come on, join the challenge, and while creating some delicious food raise some funds for the Heart Foundation.