This quick and easy red lentil dahl with coconut milk is packed with flavour, and the addition of quail eggs makes it even more delicios. Super simple to prepare, the perfect gluten-free, vegan or vegetarian dish or side.
Start by boiling the eggs - quail eggs boil in 1 or 2 minutes and the regular eggs boil in 4-8 minutes depending on whether you want them. I love them hard-boiled for this recipe.
Meanwhile, in a pan on medium fire, add the coconut oil (you can leave 1 tablespoon for frying some onion if you want to do that later separately to add at the end). Add the seeds, garlic and onions, turmeric and the curry leaves. Sweat these for a good 2 min stirring occasionally. Add a drizzle of coconut milk or water to avoid frying.
Put the rinsed lentils and the coconut milk in season and simmer for about 20 min.
You might need to add some more water in between (approx 300 ml or more to bring to the desired consistency. I like it denser but add more liquid if you wish this to be more like a soup. Add the creme fraîche now if you choose to use. Add a generous amount of freshly ground pepper. Simmer for an extra 5 minutes.
Serve garnished with the quail eggs, some chilli flakes some fresh herbs (coriander or parsley).
Additionally, if desired, do the tempering by frying one onion in 1 to 3 tablespoon coconut or regular oil until caramelised or nice and crispy. Towards the end add 10-15 curry leaves and the extra ½ teaspoon mustard seeds. Sizzle these for 30 seconds. Sprinkle this over the lentils and serve as desired but ideally with some nice homemade bread.
Notes
I mentioned that this recipe serves six and it does indeed if served as a side dish but increase the quantities to approximately 500g lentils if you intend to make it as a main dish.Having said this, this dhal can be served later or the next day reheated or even cold so if you have any leftovers it makes a great snack the next day!My favorite way to make this is to grind 4-5 peppercorns with one roughly chopped onion and the garlic into a mortar with a nice heavy pestle. The taste this adds to the dish is surreal.Also, to add to this, I sometimes caramelize some onion and add it at the very end. This should not be given a miss. Here is an idea of what it looks like. see below how to cook these in a traditional way with the tempering. I do not do this but only sometimes.As far as the taste is concerned this dish is plain delicious.