A watercolour of a bowl of pale yellow coconut and lentil curry with soft orange carrot pieces through it
Generated with OpenAI gpt-image-1
Adapted from South Indian parippu

Coconut, lentil and carrot curry

An established dish converted to shelf-stable ingredients. Every substitution is documented below.

How long it keeps

About 6 months, set by Vegetable oil (sunflower or rapeseed).

Indicative, for planning a build before you buy. The answer for a pack you already own is the best before date printed on it, and that only holds if it has been stored as the label says.

Serves
4
Burners
1
Pans
1
Water
0.9 L
Active
10 min
Total
35 min

Ingredients

Sweeter and gentler than the tomato curry above, and a better dish for the end of a cold day.

  1. Rinse the lentils, into the pan with 700 ml of water and the turmeric. Simmer 20 minutes until collapsed.
  2. Coconut milk in, back to a bare simmer.
  3. Drained carrots for the last 3 minutes: they are already cooked and will fall apart entirely if you put them in early.
  4. Separately, oil hot, dried onion for two minutes, then curry powder and ginger for thirty seconds. Tip the lot in.
  5. Salt, lemon juice off the heat.

Shake the coconut milk tin before opening, or warm it in your hands. It separates in the tin and the solid part is most of the fat, pouring off the thin liquid and leaving the rest behind is a common and avoidable loss.

Serves 4.

What this was adapted from

South Indian parippu: the everyday coconut and lentil curry

  • fresh curry leaves and mustard seeds → curry powder and ground ginger

    Curry leaves have no shelf-stable substitute worth using and dried ones are close to flavourless. Rather than pretend, the dish leans on a bloomed powder blend instead -- a different, rounder flavour that does not claim to be the original.

  • fresh carrot → tinned carrots, added at the end

    Tinned carrots are already soft, so they go in for the final three minutes rather than being cooked through. They bring the sweetness the dish needs and, deliberately, the vitamin A a long-life diet runs short of.