Recipes-not-recipes #4

Weirdly, the only thing I’ve cooked in the last few days is a daal that I’ve basically been nibbling and living off ever since – stealing bites before heading to the ponds or generously spooning it into a bowl when I’ve got home from a gig. I usually associate daal with winter comfort, but of course, in Sri Lanka, we ate daal almost every morning in near 40º heat and it was the biggest comfort. If only I had the means to make a pol sambal, but I have neither coconuts or my coconut grater (a mad contraption!).

When I was living there, our breakfasts would usually consist of a much looser daal, almost soup-like in consistency, which we ate alongside boiled eggs, sambal and roti. Even on days I wasn’t working I’d cycle into the jungle to collect this specific breakfast, the dogs running alongside me to guard me from any errant monitor lizards that might be crossing the road (no joke).

This one is more of a fridge raid version; for when you’ve returned home from drinks and are desperate for something wholesome and filling. I like to pack as many greens in as I can for the illusion of health. This is definitely untraditional, but its roots are always in the daal that my friend Gayan’s wife used to make me, delivered by tuk tuk on a weekly basis.