Cooking with Mung Dahl for the first time today. The name sounds icky in my ears, but my concoction tastes tasty in my mouth, so it’s fine.

Here’s what I made:

Spicy Curried Mung Dahl

Ingredients

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 large (at least an inch) knob of ginger, minced
• 1 medium eggplant, diced
• 2 medium carrots, diced
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 1 cup Mung Dahl, dried
• 1 cup red lentils, dried
• 1 heaping tbs Madras curry powder
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp coriander
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1 tbs dried red chilies
• 5 cups water

Directions

Slow Cooker Variation

1. Chuck everything in your slow cooker, stir it up and walk away, man. Just walk away. But come back in about 5 hours and eat your food over some cooked, long grain brown rice (raw rice would be too darn crunchy).

Stovetop

1. Over medium-high heat, saute onions, garlic and ginger in a little water or broth for about three minutes, until onions are translucent. Add curry powder, cumin, coriander and garam masala. Stirring constantly and adding more liquid as needed, saute aromatics one minute more.
2. Add celery, carrots and eggplant, adding more liquid as necessary. Saute for three minutes.
3. Stir in Mung Dahl and lentils. Add water, bay leaf, chillies and salt. Bring to a boil then reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 45 minutes to 1 hour.
4. Serve over brown rice.

I heart my slow cooker.