Omani lime daal with saffron yoghurt, herbs and a boiled egg — a Ravinder Bhogal recipe

My earliest memories of food are of daal — of the air damp from the steamy little exhalations of a puffed-out pressure cooker precariously balanced on our old stove. If you’d asked me then how I felt about daal, I’d have shrugged. Our mostly vegetarian meals were made up of several dishes served with stacks of ghee-smeared chapattis. Baby pumpkins cooked with Bengali five spice; okra fried with crescents of pink onions and potatoes; plump aubergines roasted on an open fire, their silken flesh mashed with spiky green chillies and sweet tomatoes. There was always daal — soupy masoor, mung, toor or urad — but it played second fiddle to the other players on the plate. Now, though, I eat daal two or three times a week, not just as a side, but a spectacular dish in itself.

‘This interpretation features more middle eastern flavours such as dried mint and Omani dried lime, a transformative ingredient that lends a tang, bitterness and subtle funk’

The great Madhur Jaffrey talked of “LSD” — life-saving daal — an elixir of dried legumes that is economical, varied and rich in protein. In Indian cookery a “tadhka”, or tempering of spices — anything from cumin or mustard seeds and curry leaves, along with onions, chilli, ginger and garlic — is added at the end once the pulses have cooked. It is the essential potion that makes the dish explode with fragrance and flavour.

Here, for ease and mainly to save on washing up, the onions and spices are cooked in the pot first before the lentils are added and simmered. This interpretation features more middle eastern flavours such as dried mint and Omani dried lime, a transformative ingredient that lends a tang, bitterness and subtle funk. It shows how freewheeling you can be with lentils and pulses, another reason I love cooking them so much. Served hot, with fistfuls of fresh herbs, it is the culinary equivalent of a goose-down duvet on January’s leaden-skied days.

Omani lime daal with saffron yoghurt and soft herbs

Serves four

For the saffron yoghurt

To serve

1. To make the saffron yoghurt, simply mix together the saffron and yoghurt and season to taste.

2. To make the daal, heat the ghee in a saucepan. Once it is hot, fry the onions over a low heat for 10-15 minutes until soft and caramelised. Sprinkle in the dried mint, cumin and garlic and fry until fragrant. Now add the tomatoes, limes and lentils and pour in 900ml cold water.

3. Bring it to the boil and then simmer over a low heat for 25 minutes or until the lentils are very soft. Remove the limes and scrape out the insides and stir into the daal — discard the peels.

To serve

Ladle the daal into bowls. Scatter with the herbs and sprinkle over sumac. Dollop on the saffron yoghurt and serve with an egg, boiled to your liking.

Ravinder Bhogal is chef-patron of Jikoni. Follow Ravinder on Instagram @cookinboots and Twitter @cookinboots