Dahl; getting braver with lumps and spices

After talking to some mums about how they’d offered their babies more unusual foods, I thought it was about time I fed him something more challenging and this was pretty successful and both of us liked it (with the adult adaptations below.)

I had a search around on the internet and adapted some recipes to cook (probably a completely inauthentic) dahl.


Dahl (made 1 adult portion and 5-6 baby portions to be served with rice)


100g red lentils
500 mL water
1/2 tin of tomatoes, chopped
1 tsp garam masala
1 sweet potato, peeled and chopped up small
2 blocks of frozen spinach
2 spring onions
unsalted butter


Method


Chop the spring onions finely and fry in the butter until softened.  Add the remaining ingredients apart from the spinach.  Bring to the boil, boil for 10 mins then simmer for 10 mins.


Add the spinach and cook until the blocks have melted and the dahl has returned to the boil.


Crush the potatoes on the side of the pan with a fork.


Serve with boiled basmati mixed in for babies (older babies only who are on lumps) and add chilli sauce and mango chutney for adults and serve some rice on the side.)


Note, don't freeze with the rice (but can be frozen without) because rice contains a bacterium bacillus cereus which is heat resistant and can form a nasty toxin in food which causes severe vomiting.  It's always best to cook rice when you want to eat it and not reheat or reuse.  It only takes 10 mins to cook some basmati anyway.


Edit:


Tried this again and now he's 10 months old didn't crush the potatoes.  He was fine with it now he's used to lumpier textures.  After taking out some portions for him, I added some curry paste in for us and it worked well.  Served it with some homemade chicken tikka, naan bread and some salted yogurt (sounds weird but just some yoghurt with a little salt added, for adults only obviously but I had it in India with some chappatis once and I think it's really delicious.)


Update:


Now my son is a fully fledged toddler, I tend to add a tsp or so of hot curry paste to the mix at the start and add a little more for me once I've removed his portion.  Definitely still a hit at 20 months.  Mixed in with rice he will happily chomp through a bowlful unaided with no complaints!


If you like this recipe, you might like the chicken curry or prawn and mushroom curry.