My New Series: Cooking On Pennies 🌞

Last edited Thu Sep 25, 2025, 06:54 PM - Edit history (2)

DAAL

That’s how most of the world knows this dish “Daal”, which literally translates
as “Lentils”. In the most basic version of this recipe, it is simply that, boiled
lentils, with a bit of salt & sugar to taste with a bit of turmeric as a seasoning.
There’s no animal product involved as well, if you like, which makes this dish
truly vegan.

What I really love about this dish, apart from the wholesome taste...
is the pricing:



That’s almost 50c to feed a person with a decent meal!
Now we might begin to understand why hundreds of millions of people in
South-west Asia have this recipe as their staple food.
Additionally, there’s no artificial or processed ingredient involved … also most
of the ingredients can be easily stored for months (in the right conditions).
Hence I end up returning to this recipe from time to time (and my wallet is
deeply in love with it).


Fun fact: In the state of Maharashtra, where Mumbai lies, this recipe
is called as “Varan” (वरण . This recipe is such an integral part of the
culture that it is a synonym for being “cultured”... (If you find yourself in a
conversation where you are accused of not having Varan... it probably isn’t a
compliment).



The picture shows the two main ingredients. The one of the top, the red split
lentils, is quite thin and fragile compared to the chickpeas. Which means it also
cooks way faster than the chickpeas. Hence I combine the two, where the red
split lentils give the dense, saucy texture to the soup, whereas the soft cooked
chickpeas give the good texture to the recipe.


1. Soak the lentils, chickpeas and the rice, each separately, in water for
about 30 min.

2. Cook the soaked chickpeas until they are soft.

3. In a pot, heat the oil.

4. Add the cumin seeds, turmeric and fenugreek leaves.

5. Add the soaked red split lentils to this.

6. Add salt and sugar as per taste.

7. Boil for 10 min on a medium heat until the lentils are soft and broken
down into a sauce.

8. Add the cooked chickpeas.

9. Boil on a slow heat until the desired consistency is attained for the
soup.

10. Serve with boiled rice.

That’s about it.
No knife skills needed at all.
No experienced frying or grilling skills needed either.
Neither any fancy cooking equipment.

From "Cooking On Pennies" Kunal Patankar
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/62824054


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Super Easy Daal

Even though the above recipe is pretty easy, based on the feedback I got from
friends, the downside is that the recipe still needs a bit of time (which is mostly
because of the longer time needed to cook the chickpeas).

Hence it would be a crime if I didn’t share the super-fast version of “Daal”.
It’s also based a small new hobby that I developed during the new-2020
lockdown era, which is growing some herbs on my window.

This one involves the use of an herb known as Coriander. It takes me about 4
weeks to have a small batch ready, hence this recipe ends up featuring on my
menu once every month (hence, it’s technically free).

Hence this version also turns out to be a bit cheaper...

As mentioned this version takes even less time compared to the previous
version because the red split lentils cook very fast.


1. Soak the lentils, and the rice, each separately, in water for about 30min.

2. In a pot add the lentils along with its water.

3. Add the cumin seeds, and turmeric.

4. Add salt and sugar as per taste.

5. Boil for 10 min on a medium heat until the lentils are soft and broken
down into a sauce.

6. Boil on a slow heat until the desired consistency is attained for the
soup (Add water if you think the soup is too thick).

7. Serve with boiled rice.

That’s about it.

From "Cooking On Pennies" Kunal Patankar
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/62824054

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Spring Onions Pitla

If you find yourself hosted by a family in the countryside in the region of
Maharashtra, of which the city of Mumbai is the capital, one of typical meals
would consist of something called “Pitla”.

It’s basically made my sautéing some chopped onions, optionally with fresh
green chili, a bit of turmeric and salt to taste, and then then transformed into a
lovely dense sauce by adding some chickpea flour and water. When the
chickpea flour is cooked, which is fairly quick, it turns give the dense, saucy
texture.

This is then served along with a thick bread, freshly roasted on a cast iron pan, a
few slices of onions and a fresh green chili. Simple and wholesome.

The recipe I am presenting here, is a variation of this recipe, which I regularly
end up cooking. The main difference is that it includes fresh Spring Onions.
$1.35



This is one of my favorite vegan dishes.

Note

You have 3 aspects regarding the onions in this dish. The leaves, the fresh
shallots and the regular onion. The regular onion takes the longest to cook,
because it’s more mature, then the fresh shallots and finally the leaves take the
least amount of time to cook. Hence while cooking, we end up cooking them in
that order. Also, while buying the spring onions, try to buy the ones which are
tenderer, which means that the leaves are younger and smaller. It adds to a
better texture, compared to the mature leaves.

1. Based on the above note, we will first prepare the onions in 3 parts for
the convenience of cooking.

- Finely chop the regular onion.

- Cut the spring onions into 2 parts, the fresh shallots, including
about an inch of the stem and the rest of the leaves as the
second part.

- Cut the shallots into pieces slightly larger than how you cut the
regular onions.

- Cut the leaves into about a centimeter long pieces.

2. Heat the oil in a pan.

3. Add the mustard seeds when the oil is hot and let them start popping.
This gives a mustardy taste to the oil. You wouldn’t be able to get this
flavor into the oil, if you add them at a later point of time, because the
oil cools down with the other ingredients.

4. Add the turmeric and chili powder now. Also add the fenugreek leaves.

5. Immediately after add the chopped onions, just the regular ones.

6. Sauté for about 5 min, until the onions are slightly brown.

7. Add a bit of sugar to taste. The caramelizing effect of sugar added at
this point adds a wholesome taste to the dish. (Add just a little, like 1
gm or so… This is not a dessert recipe)

8. Add the chopped shallots after this.

9. Sauté for 2 min.

10. Add the frozen green peas and the chopped leaves now.

11. Sauté for 2 more minutes.

12. Mix the chickpea flour in the water and add to the pan.

13. Gently stir everything, so that no lumps of flour are formed.
Continue heating on a medium flame and notice that the sauce
becomes thicker.

14. Continue heating for 4 min or until the desired consistency of the
sauce is achieved. Also add salt to taste.

... And it’s done!

Imagine this dish as an Indian form of Hummus... Best served with some fresh
bread (possibly better... Maybe I am biased?).

Good to know*...
* based on the feedback I got while writing this book

Diversify the “Greens”

The main green in this recipe is the spring onions. You can substitute it, for say,
Spinach... And you have a totally new recipe.

You can blanche some Spinach leaves, cut them into shapes that you prefer
and follow the rest of the recipe as it is, just adding the Spinach rather than the
spring onions.

I have tried the same with fresh Fenugreek.

From "Cooking On Pennies" Kunal Patankar
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/62824054


More to Come! ...and not just from Kunal!