Dhal or Split Pea Soup

Oh goodness it has been more than a month since I have last posted any recipes.

It has been crazy to say the least. My dad passed away earlier this month and between the funeral and everything else that was going on, I was barely home to cook normal food for myself, further more for trying to cook for the blog.

During that time I am pretty sure we were eating fast food everyday! There was 1 point where we would eat McDonalds for lunch and then pizza for dinner! It was bad. My tummy was saying what the heck is going on. Very rare do I eat fast food and I clearly had my fill.

Once life slowed back down and had started to feel normal again, I was definitely craving my home cooked food. To me home cooked food is Dhal and rice with some sort of curry.

This Dhal recipe has been requested so many times that I finally decided to do it. I mean I literally eat Dhal at least once a week! When I did my low carb diet, I basically lived on dhal and drank it like a soup with a side of pickled mango.

There are many variations of Dhal or split peas. Like the yellow and the green. In Trinidad we use mainly the yellow. In fact I have never cooked with the green split pea. Split pea is not to be confused with lentils. It is two different beans.

It is important to “chunkay” your dhal after it is cooked. If you skip this step, trust me you will not get the same taste or results. Chunkaying is the common term we use in Trinidad that simply means, adding garlic to hot oil and placing the whole hot ladle with oil and garlic into the dhal. This causes the dhal to sputter and splash since it is oil and water meeting each other. Therefore it is important to place a lid over the pot at the same time you submerge the hot ladle into the dhal.

The most common way of eating dhal is with white rice and a side or vegetables or curry.

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Click here for Dhal or Split Pea recipe.