Yesterday, I finally bit-the-bullet and started a thang I’ve been wanting to do for ages, I call it, “Daily Dhal”. It’s a Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/377889374204243) where we post dhal recipes as we make them, which for me, is most days. You can buy dhal at the Indian takeaway (Tadka dhal or Channa dhal). If you’ve not familiar with it, it’s a lentil or bean based soup, with spices and vegetables. It has different names in different countries, cheap, nutritious and easy to store. That’s how 43% of the world, living in poverty, manage to eat. The nursery rhyme “Pease Pudding Hot”, refers to a time when yellow split peas were a cheap staple in the British diet, now only eaten in the North East.
So I decided with the price increases threatening families’ finances and the vegans-now-only-eat-shit-fake-meat threatening hipsters’ health. The time was finally right to spread the love of dhal; simple, good food. I’ve been eating like this for years, my veggie kids stayed healthy this way, which is why they pretty much refuse to eat dhal at all now. This led me to another problem. I possess three, 5 litre pressure cookers, my kids are going to kill me if I make that quantity,all the time. I needed a fourth pressure cooker of course, a smaller one. I nipped into town for a cheap little one and came back with an expensive little one. An Instant pot, or “Instapot” – as those of us in the know, call them – or so the lady in Robert Dyas told me.
I set it up with YouTube’s help, because the instructions were not printed in English. To be fair, the cover of the instructions were in English. Another F. U. from Britain’s ex lover, Europe. All was going well, except the timer wouldn’t count down properly. It was taking ages, so I waited, then I turned it off and turned it on again, a few times. I googled it, I rang Robert Dyas “we only import them”. Nimish rang, his was the same, except the timer worked. It was cooking, though. Could I survive without the timer? Not at that price, no way.
Day 1, of Daily Dhal had been a 10 min junk affair (by dhal standards). Red lentils, tinned spinach, coconut milk, soy sauce, chilli oil. For day 2, I wanted to make a better impression. I went traditional, channa dhal with fresh; leek, sweet potato, tomato, green chilli, corriander, lemon and ginger; then molasses & some spices etc.
My 14 year old arrived back from school. He took one look and said, “It counts down in minutes, not seconds”.
Then he ate the whole pot.
I did not get it for free. They sponsor yummy mummies, not idiots.
* 2017 https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/WLD/world/poverty-rate
