Book review: All Dhal'd Up

All Dhal’d Up

Kamini Pather

Penguin Random House

Review: Lauren O’Connor-May

The clever title of this book gives a good synopsis of what kinds of recipes you will find inside, that is, simple ingredients blended with goodness and glam. 

It doesn’t only contain recipes, though. It also gives tips on how to put together a balanced plate and includes a glossary of the names of spices with both the Indian and English versions, which I found very useful, as well as their health benefits.

I had a hard time choosing a recipe to try for the sake of this review because all of them looked so good. With most recipe books, I find that one or two from the anthology will become part of the family meal rotation, but not so with this book, which has an array of interesting, healthy and cost-effective recipes.

For this review, I sampled the Golden Milk recipe. This is a milk (of your choice) and turmeric-based recipe which uses coconut sugar as a sweetener, but I used coconut milk as a base and skipped the sweetener. 

The recipe is like a warm hug, and the soothing drink can be a sleep aid. 

My kids were eager to try the rice and coconut pancakes. Made with yeast, the batter needs to ferment before frying. The result is a soft pancake with crispy edges. This pancake needs some planning due to the hours-long fermenting stage, which makes it a bit more work than the regular whisk-and-go variety, but they are well worth the wait.

Pather, a nutritionist by trade, won MasterChef South Africa in 2013. Since then she’s starred in Girl Eats World, a food and travel show. 

All Dhal’d Up is her second book. Her first, Eat Glocal, was released as an ebook in 2021.