AT THE TABLE Cooking and dining for hours. AD Haagsche Courant joins fellow locals every week for a snack, a drink and a good conversation. This week with Varsha Gerritsen (30) from The Hague, for whom Indian food is not only tasty, she also needs it. Her body responds better to turmeric and lentils than to Dutch dairy.
The smells that haunt Varsha Gerritsen's hall already reveal the type of cuisine she is serving this evening: Indian. A mix of garlic, ginger and slivers of onion is simmering in a pan on a separate burner in her student room in The Hague.
Chili peppers
"Garlic and ginger are kind of my basic ingredients," says 30-year-old Varsha. "I use them for almost every Indian dish. Not that it is the same everywhere in India. That differs per region. But in the In the region where my roots are located, garlic, turmeric, ginger and chili peppers are common. As a result, they are used for many different dishes. You carry something like that with you from your youth."
Varsha came to the Netherlands at the age of 2. A new country with a completely different food culture. “Lots of dairy. Something that Dutch people experience as healthy. But for me this was not always the case. My body is not built for the large amounts of dairy that are used here."
Curry
Varsha couldn't get used to the Dutch way of cooking. It was therefore soon time for her to take up the cooking utensils herself and delve into flavors and products that her body wanted: ginger, garlic and those chopped onions. Her interest in Indian cuisine was sparked.
Tarka dahl
Ingredients for 2 people
• 150 g red split lentils
• 50 g mung dhal
• 500 ml of water
• 1 tsp grated ginger
• 1 tsp grated garlic
• 1/4 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 tsp ground chili powder
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp oil
• 1 onion in cubes
• 1/4 tsp mustard seeds
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 1 tomato in cubes
• 2 tbsp finely chopped coriander
Preparation: Boil the red lentils, mung dahl, ginger, garlic, turmeric, chili powder and salt in the water for 20 minutes, with the lid on the pan. Mash the mixture until it is a creamy soup. Add salt. Put oil in another pan and fry the onion with the mustard seeds and tomato for 2 minutes. Pour the tarka over the lentils and garnish with coriander.