What to Cook Tonight #60
Three warming recipes with vibrant flavours from South Asia — a Speedy Daal with Frizzled Onions, an easy weeknight Singapore Stir-Fry, and some moreish Spiced Prawn & Kūmara Fritters.
Our three recipes this week are all about shortcuts — in the busy lives we lead, sometimes a good shortcut is all you need to help get from A to Z in lightning speed.
There is a time and a place for diligently peeling broad beans and soaking legumes — that time is not right now. Knowing which shortcuts work, and when you actually need to do the thing, is all that matters.
Of the many words of wisdom Annabel has shared with Rose over the years, this has probably been the most useful advice. When you’re really busy and you still want to eat well and cook your meals, you need to find a few tips and tricks to help speed things along.
With this in mind, our first recipe for you this week is a Speedy Coconut Daal with Frizzled Onions. This quick and easy daal is far from traditional but delicious nonetheless, and comes together in just 20 minutes.
Using quick-cooking red lentils helps speed things up, and the luscious coconut cream is what soaks up all the flavours and binds everything together, without having to use a lot of oil to slowly cook out a curry sauce at the beginning.
We eat with our eyes, so we topped this with some golden frizzled onions, coriander, and a swirl of kefir. The kefir adds some gut-boosting fermented goodness, you can use runny yoghurt if preferred, vegan yoghurt, or leave it out entirely.
As we are trying to keep the pantry minimal, we just used curry powder for this, but if you have ground cumin, ground coriander, turmeric, garam masala, or chilli powder, any or all of those too!
Smaller households can halve this recipe if you like, but we recommend making the full recipe as it will keep — leftovers will keep in a sealed container in the fridge for up to 5 days, or can be frozen (even more useful when your life is on the run).
If you want to makeover your leftovers, here are some ideas for how to zhuzh it up:
• Stir through some baby spinach at the end for added green goodness.
• When it’s in season, grate zucchini and stir it through, cook that out for a few minutes until tender.
• Make some Yoghurt Flatbreads and serve the daal alongside this.
• Add a poached or jammy egg.
• Serve daal topped with roasted cauliflower or broccoli florets.
We recommend serving this with steamed rice — when eaten together, lentils and rice provide your body with a complete protein (containing all nine essential amino acids in sufficient quantities necessary for the body's needs). Proteins are the building blocks of the body's cells, tissues, and organs and are crucial for various bodily functions, (including muscle repair, immune function, and hormone production).
Our failsafe technique for cooking white rice on the stovetop: use 1 part rice to 1.5 parts water and a pinch of salt. Cover and bring to a gentle boil, then reduce heat to the lowest possible and cook for 12 minutes. Leave the lid on, turn the heat off, and let it sit for another 12 minutes. Voila! Perfect rice, every time.
If you enjoyed the flavours in this, you will also like our wonderfully nutritious Lentil & Mushroom Ragu (particularly good in our Best-Ever Veggie Lasagne). This verdant green Persian Noodle Soup is so fragrant and satisfying — packed with fibre and protein thanks to chickpeas and kidney beans. Lastly, our creamy coconut 15-Minute Veggie Laksa is another quick dish that’s packed with aromatic flavours, perfect for a cold winter’s night.
Our second recipe this week is another 20-minute marvel — a Singapore Stir Fry. Loosely inspired by Singapore noodles, this flavourful dish utilises the curry powder we’ve got in the pantry this week and quick-cooking glass noodles to deliver a seriously tasty result in record timing.
Learning to cook some of your favourite takeout dishes is such an easy way to save money, as well as eat healthier. When you make something from scratch, you can choose how much oil or butter you want to use, and how many vegetables you want to add (if in doubt, always add more).
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