During the Christmas days I made lots of salads and the frigde was kind of full of leftover vegetables. First I thought of making a soup but I don’t really like to mix too many vegetables when making soups, so a dhal was more my idea. We usually eat the dhal with rice but to make it easier for our bellies, we had it simply, like a soup and this was excellent too!

The main ingredient of this meal is the Colombo curry , which made this food exotic and so full of flavors. The vegetables were all already cooked so I added them in the saucepan almost at the end, but if you cook with fresh vegetable, add them while you add the lentils.

Ingredients:

400 ml coconut milk

1/4 small pumpkin

5-6 carrots

4-5 leeks

1,5 cup red lentils

3TbSp Colombo curry

4-5 cups water/broth

800-900 ml tomato puree

salt, peper, 1 lemon

Soak Lentils: Rinse lentils and leave to soak in plenty of water for 1 hour.

Heat ghee/coconut in a heavy based saucepan over high heat. Add onions and fry until softened .

Lower heat to medium, add garlic and ginger. Cook for 1 minute until garlic starts to turn golden and smells amazing.

Add tomato puree/concentrated and curry, cook about 2 minutes.

Add lentils, broth and salt. Stir, bring to simmer, cover and simmer gently for 1 hour. Stir two or three times an hour. The dal is ready when it has a consistency like porridge – some lentils should be intact but some have broken down to thicken the sauce.

Add all the vegetables and the coconut milk , simmer gently for 30 minutes, stirring every now and then.

Adjust salt and curry if desired and let some more minutes to simmer. Serve it with freshly squeezed lemon juice and some coconut milk.