Chana dal with mustard greens–hmmm. That sounds yummy. Chana is my favorite dal, and I only really have one good recipe for it. Would you spice it roughly the same way?

Hadar–most Indian recipes I have seen that include mushrooms seem to be from Kashmir. So, whatever grows there is probably what is used, but the recipes just call for button mushrooms. Me–I like more assertive flavored mushrooms, so I use shiitake and if I have them, oyster, and then mix those with the button mushrooms.

Scienter–it’s the taste, for me. I used to like it just fine, but now–ugh. I think I ate one too many when I was pregnant with Kat and cannot stand them now.

I must admit I didn’t follow the recipe exactly, but it was virtually the same – I upped the quantity of cumin seeds & garlic (because I love them) and only added a small pinch of cayenne pepper instead of the tsp of chilli flakes as I was cooking for the kids (I used 1 green chilli also). I didn’t really follow quantities very precisely, to be honest, but it wasn’t far off yours. For the kale I used a mixture of various greens plucked from the brassicas in my garden (including kale) as that was what I had to hand (several triffid-like remains of brussels sprouts & sprouting broccoli have kept us in greens long past the point when most people would have dug them up!). I also added a bit of garam massala at the end, and I didn’t have any coriander leaves so omitted them.

We eat quite a lot of dal & other Indian-style foods at home, and this one compares very favourably with any authentic Indian recipe I’ve ever made. For some reason it’s never occurred to me to add kale to my dals, but I definitely will be doing in future!