Chutney Mary is London’s original fine dining Indian restaurant. From its pioneering debut in Chelsea in 1990 to its dazzlingly elegant home in St James’s today, it has become a true icon of refined, regional Indian cuisine, proudly appearing in The Good Food Guide every year since 1998.
Below, co-founder Camellia Panjabi offers a simple, homestyle take on her celebrated cooking, sharing a comforting recipe for mung dal straight from the family table and found in her new book, Vegetables: The Indian Way. Join us on Saturday 13th September for a celebratory Good Food Club lunch and book signing.
Buttery-textured mung dal
This is the dal my mother put on the table at home when we were eating a dry vegetable such as fried okra – or gowar beans or simply fried aubergine slices or similar – along with chapatti, and there was always chutney and pickle. Simple home-style lunch. But also a great hit at dinner party buffer tables, as it is a tasty dal that doesn't run into other dishes on a plate.
This is a really unctuous dal, with the consistency of creamed porridge. It looks like thick whipped butter - hence the name. It is enhanced in taste and appeal by the traditional Sinahi custom of sprinkling dried spice powders on the dal in the serving dish and then pouring really hot ghee or oil over it, which diffuses the spice oils into the dish.
INGREDIENTS
Serves 6
- 240g yellow mung dal, soaked for 4 hours or more, even overnight
- 1 tomato, chopped
- 2.5cm piece of ginger, peeled and chopped 1 green chilli
- ¼ tablespoon ground turmeric
- 1 sprig of curry leaves, with stalk
- 1¼ teaspoon salt
For the garnish:
- 8 tiny tomatoes, halved (optional)
- 3 tablespoons oil or ghee a little salt and pepper
- ¼ teaspoon red chilli powder or paprika
- ½ teaspoon roasted ground cumin
- ¼ teaspoon ground coriander
- ⅛ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon amchoor (dried mango powder)
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
METHOD
Bring 1 litre of water to the boil in a pan and add the pre-soaked yellow mung dal. Put the tomato, ginger, green chilli and turmeric into the small bowl of a processor and whiz to a purée, adding a little water. When the dal has been cooking for 10 minutes, add the purée and the curry leaf sprig. Let the dal simmer until completely mashed (about 1½ hours), then remove the curry leaf sprig.
Add the salt, and taste for seasoning. If the dal is not completely smooth, use an egg whisk or a stick blender to achieve a creamy consistency. If garnishing with tiny tomatoes, halve them and sauté them in a small pan with 1 tablespoon of oil or ghee for a few minutes, then sprinkle with a little salt and pepper and set aside.
Before serving, heat the dal until it's very hot, then spoon it into a wide, shallow serving dish. Sprinkle over all the ground spices, one by one, and salt. Then heat 2 tablespoons of ghee in a ladle until very hot, and carefully pour it over the spices which you nave sprinkled over, to infuse their flavour in the dal.
If using the sautéed tomatoes, scatter them over the dal when serving. This adds colour to the yellow dal and tastes nice too.
Join us on Saturday 13th September as we celebrate 35 years of Chutney Mary, London’s original fine dining Indian restaurant. For this special Good Food Club lunch, guests will enjoy a seven-course tasting menu featuring some of the restaurant’s most beloved dishes. Guests can also purchase Camellia Panjabi’s new cookbook Vegetables: The Indian Way to be signed on the day. Book now.
