Dal with Coconut Milk

At Ruby's, we were given a lot of coconut milk. Neither David nor I like coconuts much so we weren't sure how this was going to go. We heard it's good for things like homemade conditioners but I can't use 10+ containers of it for our hair. I pinterested recipe ideas and I came across this presumably authentic Indian Dal. I had to look it up but dal refers to the lentils themselves or the dinner you can make with lentils, onions, turmeric, and other spices. This version includes coconut milk and tomatoes. There are lots of varieties. The recipe is best served with bread or rice. We used wheat French bread but I would think any crusty bread would work great. We even ate it communal style, where we dipped into it from the big batch.

Because we don't like coconut, we left out the toasted coconut on top. We also had 330 ml containers of coconut milk instead of the 400 but I didn't change anything and this seemed to work out fine. Because we don't have much of a spice tolerance, I completely left out the cayenne pepper. I also used cumin instead of the mustard seeds because it is what we had on hand. David is one of those people for whom cilantro tastes metallic (this is a real thing) so I also omitted that. I didn't use fresh ginger or garlic (just the spice bottle varieties). I will also say we didn't drain the tomatoes. If you dig deep through the comments, she says there is no need to and I agree. Mine was a little soupier than hers looked but it works out fine with the bread (or rice) to soak it up.

This was really delicious. I do think it makes much more than 6 servings though. Next time, I may also cut the lentils in half because there are a LOT of them. I also wonder if you couldn't cook the lentils in with the sauce but I'd be nervous to try it. Because my lentil package said to cover the lentils for cooking, I did (but the recipe calls for uncovered).

I would definitely make this again but I'd probably keep all my substitutions and I'd cut it in half. We've been eating this for 3 days now and there's probably 3 days worth of it left!