A curry that has it all, chicken, lentils, fragrant spices and tempting sweet and sour notes, Slow Cooker Chicken Dhansak is full of flavour. A really satisfying dish and perfect for fake-away night!
Peel the potatoes, onion and squash and dice into 1-2cm cubes. Place these in a frying pan (skillet) over a medium heat with the oil. Allow to cook gently for 2-3 minutes. Add the spice mix and minced garlic and stir to coat the vegetables in the flavours, allow the spices to toast for a few minutes (see recipe note 1).Note: Frying the spices and vegetables in this and the following steps serve to add depth of flavour but are not essential. If preferred, the raw vegetables and spices can go straight into the slow cooker and then proceed with step 3 below.
Add 75ml of the water and sweat the vegetables for a further 3 minutes until the water is absorbed, the vegetables are slightly softened and the onions translucent. Remove from the heat and transfer the mixture to the slow cooker.
Cut the chicken thighs (see recipe note 2) into thirds then add these, the remaining water, the dal (see recipe note 3) and all of the other ingredients except for the lemon into the slow cooker. Stir gently to ensure everything is mixed and the dal and vegetables are submerged in the liquid. Cook on high for 6 hours or low for 7-8 hours.
Once the dhansak is cooked, stir through gently. The lentils should be very soft and should be breaking down into the sauce. The other vegetables should be very tender. Squeeze the juice of half the lemon into the curry, stir well and serve.
Notes
The spices need to heat through gently, stir whilst cooking so that they do not stick to the pan or burn.
Don't cut the chicken thighs into smaller pieces than thirds as the meat will become very tender over the cooking period and smaller pieces are more likely to break down. This size is large enough to ensure the chicken is distributed throughout the curry without losing shape.
Follow the manufacturers guidance on the packet for preparation of the dal, wash it thoroughly.
These ingredients are added (garlic, onion and celery salt granules) as a means to emulate another spice, Asafoetida. If you do have this particular spice, omit this blend and use 1/2 tsp of this instead.
There are variances in the cooking times of different types and sizes of slow cooker, times stated in the recipe are guidance only.