Low FODMAP #8: Quinoa Daal. I can’t believe its not daal!

Making friends with restrictions, surviving happily on a low FODMAP diet #8: Quinoa Daal. I can’t believe its not daal!

When I first came to Canada, I lived in an undergrad dorm for a couple of years and one of the hardest challenges of living there was adjusting to the food. Buying a meal plan was not optional, we all HAD to if we wanted to stay in the dorm. So one night my friend, Esha, and I decided to skip a meal and cook ourselves dinner using the only stove in the common room. We had no pots or pans, so we borrowed the only pot that another friend had. Using that one pot, in three turns, we made rice, boiled potatoes and eggs to make mashed potatoes and made a daal (lentil soup). We carried back all that food to my tiny room, sat on the floor and devoured every bit of everything. Not a grain of rice was left behind. It was one of the best meals of my life and I have not been able to recreate it to date.

Yesterday I talked about the mashed potato that we made that day; today I will talk about the daal. Daal is basically a thick, creamy lentil soup, commonly eaten with rice and/bread in South Asia. At home, we have daal as a side dish every day, during lunch and diner. No matter what else is there (or not), daal is always ALWAYS there.

Now the problem is, lentils are pretty high in FODMAP. Supposedly canned lentils are not that bad because a lot of the water soluble FODMAP (Galacto-oligosaccharide) leach out into the water that it is soaked in. ¼ cup or so may be tolerable by most people who are sensitive to FODMAP. But I am not ready for that risk yet, and ¼ a cup is way too little! So I had to come up with a substitute – a thick and creamy quinoa soup.

Ingredients

• ½ cup red/white quinoa
• 4 cups water
• 2 tomatoes
• ½ inch ginger
• ½ tablespoon chives (the green part only)
• ¼ teaspoon cumin seeds or powder
• ¼ teaspoon coriander power
• ¼ teaspoon garam masala
• 1/8 teaspoon turmeric powder
•  ¼teaspoon paprika
• cilantro for garnish

Directions

1. Rinse the quinoa thoroughly
2. Add quinoa, half of the turmeric and salt to the water; bring everything to boil and simmer on low heat until fully cooked (20-30min)
3. When the quinoa is fully cooked, use an immersion blender to blend the seeds (if you don’t have an immersion blender, you can skip this step, but blending does give a rich, creamy texture)
4. While the quinoa is cooking, in the last 10 min or so, puree the tomatoes and ginger
5. Heat oil on pan, add the chives and stir for about 30s
6. Add in the tomato puree and all the spices
7. Stir the mixture till most of the liquid evaporates and is fragrant
8. Add the quinoa to the pan with the cooked tomatoes, or the tomatoes to the cooked quinoa
9. Stir for 2 more minutes and remove from heat
10. Garnish with cilantro and serve

Whether you can eat lentils or not, this is pretty darn good and nutritious! Some quinoa daal, some rice and a dollop of plain yogurt made my night. You can also serve it with potatoes or a salad and a slice of lemon.

Esha, I miss you! May be its time we recreate our 10-year old dinner, only this time with a little less FODMAP and a little more utensils?