Dahl: a damn fine food, on & off the trail

Spent my morning tea time looking through the Ansel Adam's masterpiece Sierra Nevada: the John Muir Trail. As both a Sierra lover & a a press aficionado, I must recommend this amazingly published art exhibit. If you haven't yet seen it, find a copy & set aside some time to spend in the Sierras without having to change out of your pajamas. I'm full of memories of past hikes & dreaming ahead to next summer's adventure.

While we're on the trail, every night's supper is pease porridge, which Mr. Jack refers to as a quick-and-simple dahl: a by-weight 1:1 mixture of chia seeds, dehydrated split pea soup and toasted quinoa flakes. For the 2 of us, it weighs about 6 oz, including the critical seasoning square of organic vegetable bouillon, which does include at least turmeric, if not the other spices more traditionally associated with dhal.

Dahl is a traditional Indian dish of rice, beans and spices, that has hundreds, if not thousands, of variations. Fran's House of Ayurveda blog, for instance, has a great winter squash/lentil recipe with simple directions. With canned pumpkin on sale this month, this is especially appealing, although I would need to use another bean since lentils are on my "avoid" list.

I've been making a lot of dahl since our JMT hike when we discovered that rice & bean dishes supplied more energy than any other combination of food. So of course, I've developed a more slapdash approach than that suggested in other recipes, using pre-cooked rice & beans because it's easier for me to cook a big batch of beans & freeze to use as needed. In a pinch, I use canned beans.

Turns out that dahl makes a perfect breakfast! It's the kind of food designed to be made in a big pot & reheated as needed. I am aware of the 3-day leftover rule; at our house, however, that is completely ignored as neither Mr. Jack nor I have delicate stomachs and often find ourselves happily eating food more than a week after its initial appearance. Here's my casual recipe, which you may enjoy trying on some cool fall or winter day, either for breakfast or later in the day:

You'll need:

2 cups cooked rice
2 cups cooked beans (canned are fine if you don't have the inclination to soak & cook your own)
2 cups mixed cooked vegetables

Note: If you are using frozen rather than fresh vegetables, you will not need to cook before adding to the dahl. Canned vegetables are not recommended as they get too mushy.

My current dal includes these vegetables, which I piled into a saucepan in this order, & steamed until just tender:

• 2 golden beets, julienned
• a handful of green beans, chopped into 1/2" lengths
• small chayote (or other soft-fleshed squash) cubed 1/2"

Fresh greens, a handful or 2 if available (chard, spinach, beet, turnip). Adding chopped, raw greens to the completed dahl is one of my favorite ways to enjoy more vegetables.

1 onion, chopped
fresh ginger, about 1", minced
cooking oil: grapeseed, olive or coconut; ghee
basic dahl spices -- adjust to your own taste; heat can be added as desired

• cumin, whole, 2 TB
• corriander, whole, 2 TB
• fenugreek, ground, 1 TB
• tumeric, ground, 1 TB

Salt to taste

You will need a big pan for all of this to end up in, as well as a few other pans for toasting seeds, sauting onion & ginger, and steaming the vegetables.

A coffee grinder works great for grinding the seed spices.

Ready, set, go!

Put cooked rice & 3 cups of water in a big pan with a lid (use a pressure cooker if you have one) -- cook at low heat until the rice has broken down into a porridge
While the rice is porridging:

• Roast about 2 TBs each cumin & corrieander seeds
• Pour out & let them cool before grinding

Saute

• In a oiled pan, low to medium heat, saute a chopped onion very slowly.
• When about half-done, add finely minced ginger & keep stirring.
• When the onions are nicely translucent & browned, add the toasted, ground cumin & corrieander, along with tumeric and ground fengreek.
• Add some more oil -- I like coconut for the extra flavor, but grapeseed or olive would work as well. Ghee would probably be perfect.

Finish up
To the rice porridge pot, add:

• Spice/onion mixture into the rice porridge of rice, along with:
• Cooked beans
• Veggies, assorted
• Salt to taste

Note: This recipe has no real heat. Feel free to add a chopped chili pepper along with the ginger, or a pinch of chili flake along with the spices at the end. Do remember that heat added on the first day may get hotter as the dish matures! For breakfast each morning, I put 2 cups into a small saucepan, along with a half-cup of water, cover & simmer on the lowest possible heat while I have my tea.

Hope you enjoy some dahls this winter season. If you decide to cook a big pot & dehydrate to enjoy on the trail, leave the rice out. Next blog, we'll talk about rehydrating rice for backpacking.