The Ultimate Vegetarian Dhansak
Dhansak is a curry containing various types of lentils with meat and vegetables. It was created by the Parsi communities in India and it contains both Parsi and Gujarati influences (I simply love Parsi food!)
The name given to the dish has 2 components: “dhan” which refers to a cereal dish typical for Gujarat and “sak” refers to cooked vegetables.
This recipe contains a mix of pulses, but you can feel free to use individual types of lentils, even chickpeas! My pulses mix contained 2 types of bean, green lentils and chickpea.
I have served it with lemon rice, because that’s one of my fav.
- 250 g lentils ((you can use a mix of pulses or add 50g green lentils, 50g yellow lentils, 50 chickpeas, any type of lentil is fine, be creative - this dish is versatile) soaked overnight or canned)
- 300 g small pumpkin
- 1 eggplant
- 1 big onion (finely chopped)
- 1 piece of tamarind, soaked in hot water (substitute with 1-2 tbsp of lemon juice)
- 2 chopped tomatoes
- ghee or oil for sautéing (as per your taste)
- 10 clove garlic
- 1 tbsp cumin seeds or powder
- 1 tbsp coriander seeds or powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon powder
- 1 tsp red chilli powder
- 8 cloves
- 1 piece of ginger (Half Inch)
- 1 chilli (as per your taste)
Boil/ pressure cook the lentils together with the pumpkin and eggplant until soft and mushy. It has to be mushy!
In a food processor, add garlic cloves, all spices, chilli and ginger and pulse until you get a nice paste. Add salt to it.
In a pan, heat some oil/ghee and fry the onion until translucent. Add the paste and Sautee until fragrant.
Add the lentils and the mushy vegetables from the pressure cooker plus the water in which they have boiled to the onion and curry paste mixture and mix well. Add tomatoes too. Boil for 4-5 min.
Add the soaked tamarind at the end or the lemon juice. Serve hot.
- For the lemon rice
I just fried a pinch of turmeric in 1 tsp of ghee and poured it over the rice, then added 1 tsp of lemon juice (quantities for 60g cooked basmati rice).