How to degas split peas?

Using the Ayurvedic cooking method of heating oil and digestive spices before adding the split peas helps to reduce gas. Digestive spices such as hing, ginger, and cumin help to make split pea soup less gas-producing. Rinsing and soaking your split peas also helps them to create less gas.

What happens if you don't rinse split peas?

Whether you soak or not, split peas should be rinsed, simply to remove dust or dirt. You can also soak them in water to pick them over for stones, but the chances of finding one are slim .

What happens if you don't soak split peas?

Don't worry about soaking lentils, split peas, or black-eyed peas (or cowpeas). Lentils and peas are softer than dried beans. They'll cook within 5 to 20 minutes without any soaking time .

Why are split peas still hard after cooking?

If the peas are very old and dried out , they won't soften.

Will baking soda soften split peas?

If the peas aren't softening after the second simmering, stir in ¼ teaspoon of baking soda to the pot. It will foam up at first but subsides as it cooks . This should quickly soften the peas with a little more while simmering!

Why shouldn't split peas be soaked?

Thankfully, Epstein notes that -- unlike dried beans, which need to be soaked overnight -- split peas require no soaking, because they cook much faster . Between prep and cooking time, this recipe can easily come together in about an hour, even with the added task of pea-sorting.

How do you reduce gas from peas?

The first thing you can do is drain and rinse your legumes . Whether you are using canned legumes or soaking them from dry, some raffinose can get into the water in which the legumes are soaked in. To reduce the occurrence of bloating, discard this water and rinse your cooked legumes for good measure.

What is the best way to degas beans?

Method 1: Baking soda To degas with baking soda, add a teaspoon of baking soda to 4 quarts of water. Stir in the dried beans and bring to a boil. Then turn off the heat and let the beans soak at least four hours (I usually do this the night before I want to use them; the longer soak won't hurt them).

How do you get rid of gas in legumes?

Soaking overnight and then discarding the soaking water leaches out sugars in beans that are responsible for gas production. But if you don't have time for a traditional overnight soak, a quick soak is just as beneficial. Rinse the beans and then place them in a pot with three cups of water for each cup of dried beans.

Spinach Dal | Recipes | Moorlands Eater (2024)

Spinach Dal is a nutritious, economical and tasty soup or curry inspired by Indian dal palak.Based on yellow split peas, with whole and ground spices, a little tomato plus lots of fresh spinach, I think it’s a wonderfully vibrant mix.

In a final flourish, cumin seeds and chilli are sizzled in butter, ghee or coconut oil then poured over, adding even more flavour.

Make the Spinach Dal thinner or thicker by adding more or less water, according to taste.

Enjoy as a soup with bread for dipping or eat as a curry with rice and salad.

Great topped with a poached egg or spicy chicken too!

Boil or pressure cook the split peas in advance and the dal can be made in around thirty minutes.

Jump to Recipe

DAL & DAL PALAK

There are so many types of dal (and different ways of spelling it: daal, dahl, dhal) it can be quite confusing.

In India, dal is the name for all members of the dried pea and bean family AND the dishes made from them.

Here in Britain, to people without Indian heritage, dal usually means a mildly spiced soup or thinnish curry made with split lentils, peas or beans.

The inspiration for my Spinach Dal is the Indian dish dal palak where palak means spinach.

In my version, I’ve used yellow split peas as they’re widely available.

To speed things up, I first soak the split peas in boiling water for about 3o minutes.

After draining, they’re then simmered in fresh water with a little ground coriander and turmeric. Don’t be tempted to add salt at this point as it will toughen the peas.

Cooking on top of the stove will take around 35-50 minutes. The exact time will depend on the age of your split peas (older pulses take longer) and how soft you want them.

I like the peas to be very soft which takes about 20 minutes in my Instant Pot pressure cooker.

If more convenient, you could cook the split peas in advance and store in the fridge. You’ll then only need around thirty minutes to make the dal.

INGREDIENTS FOR SPINACH DAL

I was inspired to make this Spinach Dal when I got some beautifully fresh organic spinach in my Moorland Veg Box delivery.

With lots of tender baby leaves, all I had to do was remove the thickish stems on the bigger ones.

If you only have frozen spinach, then you can use that. Don’t bother to defrost first, just follow the recipe as written.

The other ingredients you’ll need are:

tomatoes: ideally fresh, but half a standard tin of chopped tomatoes can be substituted.
onion: yellow, red, or white, it doesn’t matter.
garlic: I include 6 fat cloves, but you can reduce this if preferred.
ginger: did you know it stores well in the freezer? Just scrape off the skin, grate as much as you need then pop it back in.
chillies: I’ve used green here, but red are fine too.
fresh coriander: I like a lot so use a whole bunch, including the stems.

Many of the recipes I’ve seen for traditional dal palak have very few spices. Often, it’s just turmeric and ground coriander in the dal itself, then some chilli and cumin seeds fried and stirred in at the end.

But I wanted my Spinach Dal to be a halfway house between the mild tasting dal I’ve eaten in restaurants and a quite spicy curry.

So, I’ve used seven different spices in addition to salt and pepper.

MAKING SPINACH DAL

To make Spinach Dal you’ll need one more ingredient: a frying medium.

Ghee (Indian clarified butter) or a vegetable oil would be traditional. However, for the dal in this post I used half butter and half groundnut oil. I sometimes use coconut oil as a substitute for ghee which also makes this dish suitable for dairy-free and plant-based diets.

Whichever you use, start off by heating the fat, then briefly sizzle the mustard seeds and some cumin seeds.

Chopped onion goes in next and is cooked for around ten minutes until starting to soften. Then the garlic, ginger and chilli are added and cooked for a few minutes more.

The deseeded and finely chopped tomatoes (I don’t bother to skin them) are cooked down a little and then the spinach (shredded) is stirred in. I add about half the coriander at this point too, including all the stems.

It’ll only take a couple of minutes to wilt the leafy green stuff. You can then add the cooked split yellow peas, the ground spices plus some salt and pepper.

You’ll need to add water at this stage too. It’s really up to you how much, depending on whether you want a soupy dal or a thicker, curry-like one.

I’ve gone for the thick version here so only needed to add 150 ml of water. But you can double that for dal soup.

A further ten minutes of gentle bubbling should be enough to cook the rawness out of the spices.

Have a taste and see if you think it needs more salt or garam masala.

When it’s just right, add a squeeze of lemon and the rest of the coriander.

You’re now ready for the final flourish which I think makes Spinach Dal even better.

ADDING A TARKA

To take this dish to the next level, I add a tarka.

Sometimes called a tadka or chaunk, a tarka is a combination of spices, heated in ghee or oil, then stirred into a dish at the end. This is probably most familiar as the restaurant favourite tarka dal.

For this recipe, the tarka is super-simple. Just cumin seeds plus chilli flakes or chilli powder sizzled in the same type of fat you used to cook the dal.

The ghee or oil takes on the colour of the spices and I think it makes a wonderful contrast with the golden split peas and green spinach and coriander.

Of course, it adds bags of flavour too swirled through the dish.

SERVING SPINACH DAL

If you’ve made the thinner soup version, then Spinach Dal is a wonderful lunch dish or starter.

Indian style breads such as chapati would be perfect alongside. Or you could make a batch of my No-yeast Quick Flatbreads, substituting wholemeal for some of the white flour.

But I’ve been eating my rich, thick dal with all sorts of things!

Why had I never thought before to top spicy dal with a poached egg? I love the combination of chilli and egg so made extra tarka to pour over as well as stir into the dal. Heaven!

You can also incorporate Spinach Dal into larger meals.

Here I sat a spice-marinated and pan-fried chicken breast on leftover dal which acted as a sauce. Alongside are basmati rice and a crunchy salad also finished with a tarka of mustard, cumin and chilli.

NUTRITIOUS, ECONOMICAL & DELICIOUS

With relatively simple ingredients, Spinach Dal makes a nutritious and economical meal.

But with a variety of spices, and that final rich tarka, it’s incredibly tasty and satisfying too.

Cook the split peas in advance, and you can have an easy, lovely bowlful on the table in around half an hour.

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Spinach Dal

Nutritious, cheap and tasty, Spinach Dal is based on yellow split peas and is finished with a spicy butter or oil tarka. Add more water to eat as a soup, less for a thicker, curry-style dal.

Once the split peas are cooked, the dal is made in around 30 minutes.

CourseSoup, Main Course, Lunch

CuisineIndian, Vegetarian, Vegan, plant-based

Keywordsoup, lentil soup, split peas

Prep Time 25 minutes

Cook Time 1 hour

Soaking time 30 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 55 minutes

Servings 4

Author Moorlands Eater

Ingredients

For the split peas

200gsplit yellow peas
1tspground coriander
1tspground turmeric

For the dal base

30gghee or coconut oilor 1 tbsp any oil + 15g butter
2tspcumin seeds
2tspblack mustard seeds
1mediumonionfinely chopped
6clovesgarlicfinely chopped
2green chilliesfinely chopped
8-10ggingerfinely chopped or grated
3mediumtomatoesdeseeded, finely chopped
200gfresh spinach, any tough stems discardedroughly chopped
40-50gbunch of corianderroughly chopped (chop stems too but keep separate)
2tspgaram masala
1tspground coriander
1tspground fenugreek
½tspground turmeric
½tspground black pepper
½-1tspchilli powder or flakes
salt
150-300ml water
½lemonjuice only

For the tarka

15gghee, coconut oil, or 50:50 butter and any oil
1tspcumin seeds
½-1tspchilli powder or flakes

Instructions

Cook the split peas

Put the split peas in a large heatproof bowl.
Pour over boiling water from a kettle and leave to soak for 30 minutes.
Drain, rinse, drain again, then transfer the split peas to a saucepan.
Cover with at least twice their depth of water and stir in the ground coriander and turmeric.
Bring to boil then turn down to a simmer. Cook until very soft, adding more water if necessary (35-50 min).
Drain off any excess water and set aside.
Can also be cooked in a pressure cooker (15-25 min).

Make the dal base

Heat the ghee, coconut oil or oil and butter mixture in a large frying pan over medium high heat.
Stir in the cumin and mustard seeds and cook until they pop and sputter.
Reduce the heat to medium then add the onion and cook until it's becoming soft and translucent (10-12 min).
Stir in the garlic, chillies and ginger and cook for 2 min, stirring often and making sure they don't burn.
Stir in the tomato and cook for 2 minutes.
Add the spinach, plus the coriander stems and approximately ½ of the coriander leaf. Cook for 2 minutes.
Stir in the cooked split peas,1 tsp of the garam masala, the ground coriander, fenugreek, turmeric, black pepper, chilli flakes or powder, 1 tsp of salt plus 150ml of water (add more water for a thinner dal).
Continue cooking and stirring until any rawness is gone from the spices (8-10 min).
Add the remaining coriander and squeeze in the lemon juice. Taste and add more salt and/or garam masala if needed.
Take off the heat.

Make the tarka

Put the ghee, coconut oil, or butter and oil in a small saucepan over medium high heat.
Add the cumin seeds and chilli powder or flakes.
Sizzle the spices for 1 minute then remove from the heat.
Pour the contents of the saucepan over the Spinach Dal, stir through and serve.
Leftovers can be stored in the fridge for 2 days.