This warming bowl of earthy vegetables, herbs and daal has a slight smokey taste coming from the pancetta. This recipe is enough for one person with about 450 calories of joy.

Ingredients 

• 20g pancetta, diced
• 2 tsps olive oil
• 50g onion, sliced
• 50g celery, sliced
• 50g carrot, peeled & sliced
• 2 gloves garlic, crushed
• 50g chana daal
• Half a vegetable stock cube
• 50g mushrooms, diced
• 2 tbs fresh herbs, chopped
• 1 bay leaf
• 100ml water
• Pepper

What to do

1. Put the oil into a saucepan over a medium heat and fry the pancetta until a little brown and the fat has come out
2. Add the onion, carrot, celery and garlic. Cook for 3 or 4 minutes, stirring as they start to soften.
3. Tip in the daal, chopped herbs, bay leaf and water. Bring to the boil and turn down the heat.
4. Leave them to simmer for about 30 minutes but check there is enough water every now and then. I like the daal with a bit of bite, if you don’t, cook until your happy.
5. Just before its ready put half of the stock cube and pepper in to the stew and stir gentle.
6. Put the other half of it in to a jug with the mushrooms and add a slash of boiling water.
7. Gently stir them so they warm through and the stock cube dissolves.
8. Put the daal and vegetable mix into your bowl and top with the mushrooms.

Tips / Pointers 

• Use another sort of daal or lentils. If they are pre-cooked then soften the vegetables more before you add them to the pan.
• Miss out the pancetta to make is vegetarian.
• Don’t put the stock cube in until the daal is cooked. Salt makes it hard and it will never cook.
• Use any combination of herbs. I used sage, thyme and marjoram. If the stems are hard strip the leaves off them.
• Eat with a pitta or flatbread if your extra hungry.