During the course of the past week, my uncle was spring cleaning and came across a box full of my Gran’s old recipes books.

He was generous enough to pass it along to me and I in turn did not go to sleep that light, I was paging and paging through all the recipes book, some of my grans books date back to 1961, way way before my time, my mother was still a bay when I gran got that recipe book. It is so old that the pages have changed colours.

To kick start my journey with those recipes book, I tried a simple, easy recipe.

This is an adaption of that recipe because trust me it needed tweaking and adding a little extra here and there

Normally we eat curry with rice or roti the picture that accompanied the recipe in 1961 showed that this stew had to be served with poppadums so that is what I served with my stew as well.

For a non vegetarian eater, I loved this recipe.

Ingredients:

• 500g x cooked lentils.
• 1 x onion, sliced.
• 3 x cloves garlic, crushed.
• 3 x pieces cinnamon sticks.
• 2 x tsp jeera seeds.
• 1 x tsp turmeric powder.
• 1 x tsp coriander powder.
• 1 x tsp ginger powder.
• 1 x tbsp. sugar.
• Salt and pepper to season.
• 2 x tomatoes, grated.
• 1 x tsp masala.

Method:

• Heat some oil in a pot.
• Add the onions, garlic and cinnamon sticks, saute till the onions are transparent.
• Add all the seasonings and give it a good stir.
• Add the tomatoes and cook till the tomatoes start to form a nice sauce.
• Add about a cup of water and allow the mixture to come to a boil.
• Add the lentils and cook till all the water has cooked away.
• Serve with poppadums.