Pleasant Peasant Cuisine

I love the sweetness that parsnips and carrots add to split peas, however, as much as I like split peas they do not agree with me, so here I have used a mix of other legumes which my system will accept without protest and back talk. My objective with this curry was to use spices/ingredients which would accentuate the natural sweetness of the vegetables without actually adding any sweetener.

It began with whole spices in a hot pan with coconut oil:

• stick cinnamon
• slightly crushed coriander seeds
• mustard seeds
• cardamom pods
• cloves
• fennel seeds
• star anise
• dried red chilis
• curry leaves
• thinly sliced ginger
• thinly sliced turmeric

 

Next I added sweet onions and kosher salt followed by slightly crushed garlic.

 

Chopped carrot and parsnip were stirred in.

 

The legumes I used were thoroughly washed split masoor dal (red lentils), whole masoor dal and split moong dal. Water was added and the curry left to simmer under a lid.

 

When the vegetables and dal had softened I added coconut cream, and seasoned with garam masala and salt.

 

The curry was served with brown rice, homemade amla pickle, coconut chutney, nonfat yogurt with radish and red onion. The dough for the whole wheat chapatis was made with curry leaf/melon seed/green chili/ moringa pesto.

---

---