Dhansak gets it roots from Persian cuisine
Little bit of history. The Parsis were from Persia and migrated to India to escape persecution in or around the 10th century. That’s the beauty of history. People move around. They bring their cooking with them. Don’t mean to oversimplify but immigration is good for food. Diversity. Variety. Ideas. My guess is this dish started out as a way to stretch a relatively rare and expensive ingredient – meat – with plentiful and cheap lentils. It’s a wonderful dish done the original way. Try that some time. It’s also really good done the Indian restaurant dhansak curry way. Try that too.
The lentils give the sauce it’s body
The lentils are cooked until they disintegrate. They disappear into the sauce but they bring body and smoothness. The sweet and sour notes come from tamarind sauce. If you don’t want to get tamarind sauce use a bit of sugar and fresh lemon juice. Don’t worry – it will still qualify as Indian restaurant dhansak curry.
Tamarind sauce is not the same as tamarind paste
This recipe calls for tamarind sauce. Specifically I use Maggi Tamarina. I don’t like to call out product names if I can avoid it. But this is pretty important. There are different tamarind products out there. You can get a block of tamarind and make it yourself. That’s hard. You can buy tamarind concentrate or tamarind paste. That’s pretty much pure tamarind and has a far stronger tamarind flavour. If you want to substitute tamarind paste use 1 tsp or 2 tsp sugar. That should give you about the same flavour profile. Not exactly the same. But close.
Make it with chicken, lamb or beef – or serve it as a lentil curry
This curry works well with chicken, lamb or beef. It’s great as a vegan lentil dish. Increase the lentils to about a cup and just don’t add any meat. That’s actually better depending on your mood. Could be the best lentil dish ever. Creamy lentils with in your face dhansak flavours.
Always do your prep for Indian restaurant style cooking
Do your prep before you get started. Make your curry base and have some heated and ready to go. Pre-cook your meat. Measure out your ingredients. Have everything ready. Restaurant style Indian curries take about 10 minutes to cook. There is no time to fiddle once you get started. Oh, and put on some old clothes. A bit of splatter is part of the fun but turmeric stains are murder to get out. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. If you read the guide to Indian restaurant technique yet, do it now. It has pictures to help you understand the recipe. There’s also a guide to Indian ingredients in that post. Indian restaurant dhansak curry is a great dish. Creamy from the lentils with a great balance of savoury and sweet. If you are a fan of Indian food this one hits the spot. Just really, really tasty.
