One of the great things about working at the E5 Bakehouse has been hanging out with people from other parts of the food world. One of the crew who I’ve particularly enjoyed getting to know is Ruth. She’s one of those types who seems to have led an incredibly full life, and has been everything from a chef at (arguably) London’s first gastro pub, The Eagle, to a tattoo artist, and a bunch of other stuff in between.
Luckily for us, she’s landed at E5 after a 10 year stint as a private chef in Ibiza, and we’ve all been enjoying her cooking immensely. For me, amongst my favourite stuff that she cooks are her daals. They are never quite the same, but she riffs around a basic formula and then tweaks it depending on whats on offer. Anyway, she’s now got me craving daal at home, so I asked her for the recipe, and this is it. Or rather an approximation of it. I’ve tweaked it myself a few times, and whilst I’ve not quite reached Ruth’s pinnacle of daal domination, I’ve been pretty pleased with this version.
Ingredients
250g Chana Daal
3 cloves of garlic
2 green finger chillies
1 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled
1 bay leaf
1 tsp cumin seeds
