I love Indian food, and have been making it for decades — but that has mostly been restaurant-type dishes, not what might be served in the home.
Some years ago, I pitied my Indian vegetarian work colleagues for their lunches, which often just seemed to be sad-looking bowls of yellow mush. Then I bought Julie Sahni’s cookbook Classic Indian Cooking, and discovered the delights of dhal.
Many are made from lentils that I wasn’t familiar with, some from peas and beans (including chickpeas/garbanzos, which I love), and there are about 1,000,000 different recipes. If that’s not enough, they are of course infinitely variable, and there are regional differences. So it’s been a fun journey, learning about the various types, and how to cook them, and I make some variety pretty much every week.
At their most basic, most recipes follow a simple pattern: (1) cook the lentils, possibly with additions, until tender and/or really mushy; (2) make the tadka, which is heated fat (butter/ghee/oil) with the flavorings (just thinly sliced garlic is delicious); then stir it all together.
. . . and they are mostly dead easy to make. The smaller lentils (toovar/masoor dhal) don’t need to be soaked, but the larger ones (moong/chana) benefit from soaking, and peas and beans need to be soaked overnight. And like any dried legume, they should be covered with 1/2 inch or so of water, brought to the boil, but then the heat turned down to a (s)low boil, otherwise they will turn to mush outside before the centers are properly cooked.
The only other potential problem is in cooking the tadka — the fat should be kept at low heat so as not to burn the flavourings.
This is a recipe that I found on the net. It has more ingredients, and is thus a bit fiddlier, than many I’ve tried, but it’s absolutely delicious, and has become my go-to dhal recipe.
Ingredients:
- 2-1/2 C. moong dhal
- 1/2 tsp. ground turmeric
- 1-1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/2 tsp. grated or finely chopped ginger
- 1/2 finely chopped jalapeno or other chili pepper
- 1/2 C. diced tomatoes
- 1 Tbsp. lemon juice or 2 tsp. lime juice
For the tadka:
- 1 Tbsp. fat of your choice
- 1 tsp. whole cumin seed
- 1/2 tsp. dried chili pepper
- 1 pinch (1/8 tsp.) asafoetida (substitute: don’t use it!)
- 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped; or 1/2 C. finely chopped onion
For garnish:
- 1/4 chopped cilantro
Method:
Soak the dhal in 3 C. water for 30 minutes:
Bring it to the boil, add the salt and turmeric, and any long-cooking vegetables (I used carrots), then lower the heat and cook for 15 – 30 minutes, stirring occasionally (especially towards the end of the cooking time, so they don’t stick) and add water as needed, until the lentils are tender:
Stir in the ginger, jalapeno, tomato, and lemon juice:
Cook for another 2-3 minutes, then taste and correct seasoning.
Make the tadka: heat the oil in a small saucepan, then add the cumin and chili pepper. Stir for a minute or so on low heat , then add the asafoetida and garlic/onion, and continue to stir for an additional minute.
Bung the whole thing together:
Garnish with the cilantro and serve:
Yum!
-R
