I've only recently got into lentils. My suspicion was that they would be tasteless and dull. I could not be more wrong.

My first foray was with puy lentils, both with sausages and duck. Delicious. Now, with my love of Indian food, surely the obvious next step was daal? On my various travels around India, I honestly don't remember eating daal, which seems impossible.

I've made several version, with different types of pulses, but this is the first and still my favourite.

The addition of the butternut squash gives a lovely sweetness and much of it tends to melt into the sauce. The lentils should be deliciously creamy and the coconut milk gives a lovely gloss.

If you want to make it more non-veg, you could add some chicken about 20mins before it's ready, but it really doesn't need it - in fact I found it distracts from the beautiful richness of the daal.

Ingredients:

75g green lentils, rinsed
75g red lentils, rinsed
1 large onion, finely chopped
1tsp garlic purée
1 tsp ginger purée
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp black mustard seeds
1 tsp ground turmeric
½ tsp cayenne
½ tsp asafoetida 
½ tsp cinnamon
375 ml chicken (or vegetable) stock
200g canned chopped tomatoes
200g butternut squash, cubed
200 ml coconut milk
1 tbsp muscavado sugar
½ tsp garam masala

How to make it: 

1. Rinse the lentils at least 3 times with cold water.

2. Heat some oil in a large frying pan and cook the onion, stirring, for at least 15mins until they start to brown.

3. Add the spices [except the garam masala], garlic and ginger and stir through until the spices release their fragrance. Don't let them burn - add a few spalshes of water if need be.

4. Add the lentils and stir for a few minutes until they're coated in the spices.

5. Add the stock and bring to the boil. 

6. Stir in the tomato and butternut squash, then cover and cook over a very low heat on the hob for two hours, stirring every now and again. 

7. Mash a few of the lentils against the side of the pan with a spoon to thicken the sauce.

 8. Stir in the sugar and garam masala. Add the coconut milk a few spoonfuls at a time, allowing it to absorb into the lentils before you add more. This will take about another 10-15mins.

9. Taste and check the flavour, adding salt, sugar or some extra coconut milk as needed.

About 5 years ago I took a couple of months unpaid leave from work and went to Jaipur to teach English to children living in the slums.

It was a fantastic experience working in another country, if at times bewildering, as I was never entirely sure what was happening from one day to the next - teaching the entire school to sing Jingle Bells in assembly or a class of teenagers how to use superlatives.

One thing though was a given: at 3pm every day a small boy from a stall down the road would bring chai for all the teachers. Thick, creamy, spicy, super sweet, blisteringly hot, served in tiny disposable cups. Nothing in the world could have hit the spot more, and now when I drink chai it takes me back to sitting in the school hall with the other teachers marking books and drinking tea.

I've always loved tea loaf and wanted to add those chai spices. This is quite a dense, moist tea loaf and delicious either on its own or spread with butter. You can easily get chai tea bags in supermarkets now - they won't replicate my 3pm experience but they will help create plump spiced sultanas.

Ingredients:

Loaf:
350g sultanas
50g demerara sugar
50g dark muscavado sugar
150ml cold black chai tea
225g self-raising flour
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
Half tsp nutmeg
2 cloves
Seeds of 3 cardamom pods
3 black peppercorns
1 medium egg, beaten
110g glace cherries halved
50g chopped pistachios

Topping:
20g very soft unsalted butter
50g demerara sugar
20g icing sugar
Half tsp vanilla extract
 

How to make it:

1. Put the dried fruit, both sugars and the tea into a bowl, stir and leave overnight. The fruit will soak up the liquid and the spicy flavours of the tea.

2. Pre-heat the oven to 180ºC/gas 4. 

3. Grease a loaf tin and line it with baking paper.

4. Grind the cloves, pepper and cardamom to a very  fine powder with a pestle and mortar.

5. Mix the flour, spices, egg and fruit together till totally combined. Stir through the cherries and pistachios.

6. Put the mixture into the loaf tin and push it  carefully into the corners with a spoon making sure the top is even.

7. Put it in the oven for 30mins or until a  cocktail stick comes out clean.

8. Put all the topping ingredients into a bowl and mix.

9. Once the cake is cooked and still in the tin, take spoonfuls of the topping and spread onto the cake while it's still hot. It will form a thin crunchy crust on the cake.

10. Leave the cake to cool and the topping to set for about 10mins then remove from the tin carefully and place on a cooling rack.