Yellow split peas are very prevalent in the Indian communities of Guyana, Fiji, Suriname, Jamaica, South Africa, Mauritius, Trinidad and Tobago, and are popular amongst Indians in the United States as well as India. There, it is referred to generically as dal and is the most popular dal. It is prepared similarly to dals found in India, but may be used in recipes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dal#Common_ingredients

When we think about the effects of colonization on food, we tend to think about how European settlers went into other parts of the world and how their culture influenced the cuisine in the countries they colonized. Perhaps we also think about how ingredients and dishes from the colonized countries go back and influence the cuisine in the home country. The third aspect of this, which I suspect most people don’t think much about, is how the cuisines of the colonized countries spread to each other.

For example, why do Indian dishes like dhal and roti seem to be part of the everyday diet in Guyana, a county in South America? It’s pretty safe to guess that the British, who gained control of the region from the Dutch in the late 18th century, brought in Indians to work their plantations in Guyana. After slavery was abolished in British colonies in the early to mid-1800s, a program was developed to bring in Indians as indentured laborers to help run the plantations.

Today Indo-Guyanese, descendants of those indentured workers, are the largest part of Guyana’s population at somewhere around 40%, so it’s not really a surprise that Guyanese food shares many elements with Indian food.

Comparing this recipe to the various Indian dal recipes I’ve shared recently, you can see that it has its roots in poor workers, halfway around the world from home, and their descendants now living in a country where over 40% of the population lives in poverty. Indian recipes tend to have a whole list of spices and avoid most premade spice blends, but this Guyanese version relies heavily on cumin as the primary spice, and includes several premade spice blends rather than the individual spices, presumably because it’s cheaper to buy the mix than to keep a dozen different spices on hand to make your own. The use of chicken bouillon powder or cubes is another thing I’ve come to associate with third-world cuisines- I guess it’s another cheap way to add lots of flavor to dishes. (If you are vegan you can easily skip this, or replace it with vegetable bouillon)

I’ve talked before a bit about all the different types of beans used to make dal, and how in North America my impression is that red lentils (masoor dal) are the most popular, while in India toor dal (split pigeon peas) tend to be the go-to lentil. Apparently in much of the rest of the world, yellow split peas are the legume of choice for making dhal. In researching this recipe, I did come across a few references to other varieties of dal, so clearly they are available, but not as popular. My guess is that peas were the legume that British colonizers were familiar with and easily able to get their hands on large enough quantities of to feed their Indian workforce who probably didn’t come prepared to start growing their own food.

Blended spices and legumes of choice aside, two things really differentiate this version from Indian ones.

First is consistency- Guyanese dal is generally pretty watery. Gravy would probably be the best way to describe the consistency. Several blogs I read while researching this recipe talked about putting it in a mug and drinking it. The peas are cooked until they fall apart easily, and then the dal is usually blended until it is smooth. Traditionally this is done with a “dhal ghutney” or “swizzle stick”, which is a star-shaped piece of wood on the end of a stick. The stick is spun between your palms to stir and mash the dal. For a more modern approach, an immersion blender does the same thing much faster. Or just beating it with a wire whisk worked well enough for me.

The most distinctive feature of Guyanese dhal, though, is the chonkay. In several of my Indian recipes I have used a tadka, which is whole spices fried briefly in hot oil and then poured over a dish as the final step before serving. (It goes by many different names in different parts of India, but I’ve settled on tadka or tempering since those were the first terms I came across.) Chonkay is the Guyanese term for the same thing, but for this dish, they actually fry the cumin and garlic until it is almost burnt. If you’ve done much cooking at all, you’re probably aware that everyone warns you not to burn your garlic, and yes, burnt garlic becomes rather unpleasant and acrid tasting. But, just before it’s burnt, it lends a distinctly smoky taste, that really works well in this dish.

Everyday dal in Guyana is usually made by throwing everything in the pressure cooker and cooking it until it’s soft enough to mash. However, the version I’m sharing here, called Bounjal dhal or “wedding house” dhal, adds an extra step, by frying the onion first, then frying the peas until they are coated with spices before adding the water. I do recommend stirring constantly here- I wasn’t well prepared with everything ready for the next step, so I was trying to stir this, chop tomatoes, measure water, and take photos all at once, and wound up with spices stuck to the bottom of the pot and almost burnt. Flavor-wise I think it complemented the chonkay, but I expected the turmeric to provide a more vibrant color to the finished dish.

Speaking of tomato, I believe that most Guyanese wouldn’t use tomato in their dhal, but it did show up in enough of the recipes I looked at to sneak into my recipe. The story in one of them was that they had heard from an East Indian friend that they usually use tomato in dhal in India, so they tried it and liked it.

Wiri wiri peppers are a tiny little hot pepper often used in Guyanese cuisine. I think they would traditionally be fresh, but the few sources I could find listing fresh ones online were, unsurprisingly since it is winter in North America, out of stock. One or two Caribbean markets in NYC list frozen ones but don’t ship, so I bought dried ones^* from Amazon.

Geera (or some spelling variation thereof) is the common Indian name for cumin. I’m using the term in this recipe specifically for roasted ground cumin^* , which I bought from Amazon. You could certainly make your own, but I figured I’d buy some and get an idea of how dark it’s traditionally roasted, the answer being several shades darker than I probably would have gone if I’d made my own. In the future I will likely make my own, taking that information into account.

As much as “curry powder” isn’t really a thing in India, it does seem to be a thing wherever you find Indian populations outside of India, and its exact flavor profile varies from place to place. I’m sure Guyana has its own preferred blend, but I had some homemade Jamaican-style curry powder in the cupboard that I figured was probably close enough, and probably whatever curry blend you like is fine.

In the optional ingredients, I list Caribbean green seasoning. This is a blend of fresh herbs, onion, garlic, and peppers that a lot of Caribbean cooks make in big batches and keep on hand as a quick base seasoning for any dish. I did not use any this time around, and I don’t think it’s as common in Guyana as it is elsewhere in the Caribbean, but certainly, some cooks use it. Just Google Caribbean green seasoning and you’ll find lots of recipes.

While with some rice or roti, this can certainly be a meal on its own (that’s how I ate it), it’s most commonly served as a side to a larger meal. Several bloggers commented that dhal with rice, and fried fish is their favorite way to eat it. I guess it’s the Indo-Guyanese version of mushy peas with fish and chips?

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Guyanese Bounjal Dhal

Serves: 4
Prep: 15 minutes
Cook: 45 minutes
Total: 1 hour, plus soaking time.

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