Even though a Dhansak is one of the most popular dishes served in UK curry houses its not a dish I would normally order.

Part of my food journey is to understand all forms of Indian & Asian cooking, embracing all the different techniques, methods, ingredients & flavours.

I have to admit, I’ve made this a couple of times and it gets better each time. Even though the British version is a lot less complicated than the dish the Dhansak is based on from a region of Mumbai, a dish made famous by the Parsi community it still has a good handful of ingredients which really interests me.

Ingredients – 4tbsp of rapeseed oil, 2 tbsp of garlic & ginger paste, 1 tsp of ground cumin, 2 tbsp of homemade mixed curry powder, 1 tbsp Kashmiri chilli powder, 1/2 cup of tomato puree (2 tbsp of tomato puree mixed with 6 tbsp of water) 2 cups of homemade base sauce, 1 cup of precooked red lentils, 800g of precooked chicken, 3 or 4 rings of pineapple from a tin, the juice from the same tin, pinch of salt, juice of 1-2 lemons and a handful of chopped coriander to garnish.

Method – Heat the oil in a heavy based pan. Once the oil is hot add the garlic & ginger paste (warning as I found out – as the oil gets very hot as the paste hits the oil it spits everywhere and burns!!). Let this sizzle for 30 seconds.

Add the turmeric, this will turn the paste quick dark then quickly follow this with the curry powder, chilli powder and tomato puree stirring all the time.

Pour in half of the base sauce, do not stir allowing this to come to a sizzle for a minute. Scrape the sides of the pan to bring the delicious crust of sauce back in to flavour it then add the precooked lentils. Its very important to keep stirring as the lentils will catch the bottom of the pan and still sadly.

Add the rest of the base sauce with the precooked chicken. Add the pineapple chunks and juice then leave is to simmer for 5 minutes.

Finish the dish with a good pinch of salt, juice of 1 – 2 lemons depending on how sweet you like food plus the chopped coriander.

I served my take with steamed rice and a nice cold beer!! Always makes a difference!

This recipe is credited to ‘The Curry Guy’ Dan Toombs.

Really appreciate you taking the time to read my ramblings.