Dal baati

Anyone who know me I love authentic food from virtually any part of India, and when I saw a picture of the Rajasthani dal baati, I was immediately transported back to a thali lunch I had with my mother at Rajdhani. With so many available dishes, I didn't enjoy it as much that day as I should have, but more than made up for it when I cooked it myself.


For the dal:
1/4 cup moong dal (dhuli)
1/4 cup toor dal
1/4 cup chana dal
1/8 cup urad dal (dhuli)
1/8 cup green moong dal
1/2 tsp haldi powder
Salt to taste

For tempering of dal:
2-3 clove
2 bay leaves
1 green cardamon
1 inch piece cinnamon
1 tsp jeera
A pinch of hing
1 tsp red chilli powder
1 green chilli, chopped
1 inch ginger, chopped
1 1/2 tbsp ghee


For Baati:
2 cups wholewheat flour
1 cup rawa
1/4 tsp ajwain
1/3 cup ghee
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt


Method:
For dal:
Soak the dals for 2-3 hours to soften it.
Pressure cook the dals with salt and haldi powder for 20 minutes after the first whistle (or cook on an open flame, till soft).
Heat the ghee, add hing, bay leaves, connamon, cloves, jeera and let it splutter till jeera turns dark. Add chopped chillis and ginger and saute on low heat for a minute. Add chilli powder, and pour the ghee over the dal.
Cover the dal and let the flavours infuse. Bring to boil, and simmer for 5 minutes.

For baati:
Mix the dry ingredients well. And ghee and mix till crumbly. Add a little water, and knead to form a tight dough. Cover with a cloth and let it stand for 1 hour.
Make lemon sized balls, flatten slightly and make a depression in the centre.
Preheat the oven to 150 degrees.
Lightly grease a baking tray, and bake for 15-20 minutes till golden.
Flip and bake the other side.

To eat, break the baatis in half, pour ghee over them, and have with dal.

Snake gourd stuffed with mixed pulses

Leftovers! How I hate them. At every mealtime, when just that little bit of something or the other gets left over, I despair. Do I throw it out, despite the fact that millions of people across the world are starving. Or do I shove them in the fridge, even though I know I am unlikely ever to consume them.
Which is why, I love those recipes where leftovers get a makeover.

2 snake gourds
1/2 cup leftover dal, thickened (you can even mix different dals before thickening them)
Oil for shallow frying

Method:
Wash the snake gourds and roughly scrape the skin. Make s slit along the vertical line, remove the seeds, and cut into 2 inch pieces.
Stuff the pieces with thickened dal, and shallow fry.
Serve with rotis.
You can also sprinkle with sev or chopped onions.

French lentil and vegetable soup

It was the second day of the Diwali vacation, and the maid had taken off. With two hungry kids (and a grandmother) to feed, I decided to try out a recipe I had seen and liked a very long time back. Since I trust SpiceRoots like I trust few other blogs, I presumed the recipe would work, and didn't worry too much about making a few changes. Needless to say, I skipped the wine, and served it as a regular "dal" to my mother, but it was absolutely fantastic.

1/2 cup masoor dal, rinsed
2 tsp olive oil
2 medium onions, sliced
4-6 cloves of garlic minced
1 bunch spring onions, chopped (reserve some for garnish)
1 tsp fresh oregano
1 tsp jeera powder
1 tsp dhania powder
2 carrots, diced
4 cups water
2 tablespoons dry red wine
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese, for serving
Salt and pepper as per taste

Method:
Rinse the masoor dal, and pressure cook it for 20 minutes with 2 cups water.
Heat olive oil in a large pot. Add the onions, garlic, spring onions, salt and pepper and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are very tender.
Add the carrots, and jeera and dhania powder, and cook until the carrots begin to soften.
Add the two cups of water and the cooked dal, and let it simmer for a few minutes.
Add the grated cheese, and let it bubble for half a minute till the cheese melts in with the soup.
Add in the wine, stir and cook half a minute.
Serve with garlic bread.

Lauki-masoor dal

When it comes to cooking, I am never consistent. Sometimes I follow recipes to the letter, and other times I vary one or two ingredients to see how it works. And every once in awhile, I try something totally different, but by throwing together whatever strikes my fancy. And surprise, surprise, sometimes they work.
This started out as a conventional lauki subji, but somewhere along the line, I added some masoor dal- not enough to make it a kootu, but enough to make it something quite different from what it started out as. The mint, adds just that additional flavour.

1 medium lauki, deseeded and chopped fine

1 medium tomato, chopped

1 medium onion, chopped

2 tbsp masoor dal

1 inch piece of ginger, chopped fine

1/2 tsp jeera

1/2 tsp haldi powder

1 green chilli 

Cooking oil

Salt to taste

2 tbsp mint.

Method:

Heat the oil in a pressure pan, add jeera, and when it starts spluttering, add onions and ginger, and saute till the onions start turning transparent. Add tomatoes and half the mint, and saute till it turns mushy.

Add chopped lauki, masalas and the masoor dal. Saute for a minute, then add 1 cup water, and pressure cook for 15 minutes. 

Garnish with mint before serving.

Palak Dal

Palak-dal is a dish I make fairly often, and have never blogged about since it is so "regular". This time, however, I tried a different technique, and the result was so much nicer than normal that I had to document it.

3/4 measure masoor dal
3/4 measure tur dal
1/4 tsp haldi/ turmeric powder
1/2 bunch spinach/ palak chopped fine
1 medium onion chopped fine
4-5 pods garlic chopped fine
1/2  tsp jeera
2 red chillis
a pinch of hing
salt to taste
juice of 1/2 lime
cooking oil

Method
Pressure cook the dals with haldi till soft- I reduce the flame after the first whistle and cook for 20 minutes
Heat the cooking oil, temper with jeera. Once the jeera stops spluttering, add red chilli, hing, garlic and onions saute till onions start getting transparent. Add spinach leaves and saute till the water releases, then dries up.
Add cooked dal and salt to taste. Bring to boil, reduce flame and cook for 1 minutes. Squeeze the lime just before serving.

Spicing up plain ol' dal

Even plain ol' dal can be spiced up with a few crushed dal vadis- perfect for those days when you want something more than just "regular dal", but don't feel like putting in any additional effort.

Pressure cook masoor dal with turmeric and red chilli powder till soft and mushy. Mash well, add water to get the desired consistency, add salt to taste and bring to a boil.

Temper jeera in some mustard oil. Add 1/2 an onion chopped fine, and when it turns transparent, add about 2 tbsps of crushed vadis. Fry till onions are browned, then pour over the dal and serve.

Parsi Mora Dal (Everyday dal)

"Mora dar chaval—plain dal with rice—is a dish with tremendous significance for Parsis. It may appear anytime, but it has to be eaten on any occasion out of the ordinary..... The underlying lesson is that life cannot be led without experiencing both joy and sorrow in some measure, and we mustn't make too much of either, for both are fleeting."
When I read this excerpt from 'My Bombay Kitchen: Traditional and Modern Parsi Home Cooking' by Niloufer Ichaporia King, I knew I just had to make mora dal to celebrate the Parsi Food Weekend on IFF. Dal is a staple in my house, and while I don't claim to be an expert, I do know that nothing can beat a dal well made.

1 cup red lentils (masur dal), husked split pigeon peas (tuvar dal), or mung beans (mung dal)
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/2 teaspoon (or more) salt
1 onion, quartered (optional)
1 green chile (optional)
4 cups (or more) water
1 to 2 tablespoons ghee or butter
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 to 4 cloves garlic, minced
1 to 2 tablespoons finely chopped onion or shallot (optional)

Pick over the dal to remove stones and chaff. Rinse the dal and transfer to a pot; add the turmeric, 1/2 teaspoon salt, quartered onion, and chile, if using, along with at least 4 cups water. Bring to boil; reduce the heat and simmer, partly covered, until the dal is tender. (Masur and mung dals soften in about half the time it takes to cook tuvar dal, which needs a good 45 minutes to 1 hour.) Watch out for overboiling, even with the heat down.
When the dal is soft and mushy, pass through a sieve or a food mill or liquefy in a food processor or with an immersion blender, which saves you the trouble of pouring and transferring. The texture of the dal should be thick, smooth, and pourable. Taste for salt.
To finish, heat the ghee in a small skillet over medium heat. Sizzle the seeds, garlic, and onion, if using, until the garlic begins to brown around the edges and the seeds start to crackle. Tip the vaghar into the dal and stir.
Note: In my mother's house, it was considered good practice to send dal to the table in a tureen with the vaghar floating on top, a last-minute affair, although the flavors have a better chance to combine if you stir in the toasted spices ahead of time. If you're having dal as a first-course soup, you can serve individual portions with a little vaghar poured over each one.

Pongal spread

One of the advantages of a mixed marriage is that at festival time you can choose what you want to do. If you are in a mood, you can go all out to celebrate, and if you are not in a mood, you can just pretend the festival doesn't exist.
This year, I couldn't decide how I wanted to treat Pongal, so kept putting off making a decision. It was pretty late in the morning by the time I finally decided to make Shakarai Pongal and Korumbu, but they both came out really well, and that's all I really care about. So what if I ended up eating nothing else for the rest of the week- it was a pleasure.

Kaali dal

We all love mah ki dal, or kaali dal, but I rarely make it, because I always felt it is best left to the experts. But after moving to the new place, I found that none of the restaurants here serve kaali dal, so have no choice but to start making it!

1 cup whole urad dal
1 tbsp chana dal

2 onions
2 tomatoes
1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
2 bay leaves
1 inch piece cinnamon
1 star anise
1 badi elaichi
4-6 cloves
4 tsp dhania powder
2 tsp jeera powder
2 tsp red chilli powder
2 tsp kasoori methi
salt to taste
2 tbsp cooking oil

4 tbsp cream


Method:
Wash the dals, soak for about 2 hours, and pressure cook till cooked.
Meanwhile, mince the onions, and keep aside. Puree the tomatoes and keep aside.
Heat the oil, add all the whole masalas and stir around for a few seconds. Add onion paste and ginger garlic paste, and cook on a low flame till the raw smell goes.
Add tomato puree, and the powdered masalas and keep cooking till the masala leaves the edges of the vessel.
Add the cooked dal, and mix well. Add water, if required, to get the desired consistency. Bring to boil, reduce the flame and let it simmer for 10 minutes.
Add kasuri methi and cream, mix well, and serve.

Dal Tadka

We love dal tadka, and I have often tried to replicate it at home. This seemed like an amazing recipe, and though it was nice, it still wasn't dal tadka the way restaurants make it.

1/2 cup tur dal
1/2 cup masoor dal
1 or 2 green chilies, chopped or slit lengthwise
1 medium sized onion, chopped
1 medium size tomato, chopped
1 tsp turmeric powder
a pinch of asafoetida/hing
2 cups water
1 tsp kasuri methi/dry fenugreek leaves, crushed
1 or 2 tbsp cream (optional)
1 tbsp chopped coriander leaves
salt as required

for the tempering/tadka

2 tbsp oil
1 tsp cumin
5-6 garlic cloves
2-3 red chilies
a generous pinch of hing

Method

Rinse the dals, add chopped onions, tomato, green chilies, ginger, asafoetida & turmeric powder along with the dals in a pressure cooker.
Add salt and two cups water, mix well and pressure cook the dals for 15 minutes till done.
Once well cooked then beat the dal with a churner or a wooden spoon till well mashed and creamy.
Add some water to get the desired consistency and simmer for 3-4 minutes.
Once the desired consistency is reached, add cream (optional), crushed kasuri methi & chopped coriander leaves and switch off the fire.
Mix well, check salt, cover the dal with a lid.

Heat oil in a pan, add cumin and fry them. Add red chilies, asafoetida and chopped garlic. Once the garlic gets browned pour the entire tempering along with the oil into the dal.

Dal makhani

Never did I think a day would come when I would cook Karva Chaut dinner- in the past, we have either eaten out, ordered in or had whatever the maid dished out. But this time, I decided to make "pakka khanna"- dal makhani, puris and aloo subji.
Cooking without tasting is harder than I thought, but the food was yummy- so yummy, in fact, everyone had a second helping!

1 cup black gram or sabut urad dal
¼ cup kidney beans or rajma (optional)
5- 6 tomatoes
8-10 garlic
½ tsp red chili powder 

1 tsp kasuri methi
2.5 tbsp oil
2 to 3 tbsp cream
salt as required

Method 

Rinse and soak the lentils in enough water overnight or for 8-9 hours. Drain and pressure cook with 4 cups water for 20 minutes. When the pressure settles, remove lid, wash lentils and keep aside.

Meanwhile, puree the tomatoes and garlic. Add to the lentis, along with oil, red chilli powder, kasuri methi, cream and salt, and sufficient water. Pressure cook till one whistle. When the pressure settles down on its own, remove the lid and check the lentils and the consistency of the dal- the lentils should be completely cooked and mushy.
Simmer the dal without any lid on a low to medium flame, till the consistency becomes medium and smooth. Mash some lentils with the back of a spoon to thicken the dal. Check the seasoning and add more salt or red chili powder if required. Simmer for 5 minutes or more till you get a creamy smooth consistency like the way you see in the dhabas and restaurants.
Serve the dal makhani hot plain or topped with some butter or cream along with rotis, naan, paratha or plain or jeera rice.

Notes

1. the consistency of dal makhani can be easily adjusted by adding more or less water. 
2. if in the third stage of cooking the consistency becomes thick, add some water. 
3. if the consistency is thin, then simmer dal makhani for a longer period of time till you get the desired consistency.

Langarwali Daal

Though I have never had it in a Sikh gurudwara, the Langarwali Dal is one of my favourite dals. I looked for a recipe, and since all of them spoke about slow cooking on an open flame, I convinced myself that it was a dal that I would never have the patience to make at home. But when the subjiwala gave me mint leaves instead of curry leaves (too little for chutney, too much for garnish), I decided to adapt the recipe for a pressure cooker, and was quite happy with the results.

1 cup black urad dal
1/2 cup chana dal
5 cups water
1 large onion
4-5 cloves of garlic
2 inch size pieces of of ginger
1 large tomato
Few sprigs of Fresh mint
4 green chilies split length wise
Salt to taste
1/2 tsp red chili powder
1/2 tsp turmeric pwd
Lightly roasted cumin, ground 1/2 teaspoon
2 tbsp butter
1/2 cup milk


Mince the onion, the ginger and the garlic and keep aside.
Coarsely grind the ginger and garlic with a few sprigs mint.
Wash the dals well, add water, minced onions, ground ginger, garlic and mint, green chillies and cook on the pressure cooker for 20 minutes after the first whistle.
Melt butter in a pan till hot, add tomatoes and fry. Make a paste of red chili and cumin in a teaspoon of hot water, add to the tomatoes, and let it cook for a few minutes.
Meanwhile, mix turmeric in the milk and add to the dal. Add the fried tomatoes, and cover and cook on the lowest heat till thick.
Garnish with mint leaves fried in ghee.

Quick and Easy Kaali dal

Another of my quick recipes for a dal which tastes more exotic than it is.

1 measure mixed whole pulses soaked overnight
2 onions
1 tomato
2 tsp ginger garlic paste
2 tsp dhania powder
2 tsp jeera powder
1 tsp red chilli powder
Kasuri methi
salt to taste
oil


Method
Fry the chopped onions till they turn transparent.
Add ginger garlic paste, dry masalas, and fry till the raw smell goes
Add chopped tomatoes and fry till they turn mushy.
Put the masala with the dal in a pressure cooker, add sufficient water, and cook till soft
Garnish with kasoori methi (optional) and boil once before serving.

Methi kaali dal

Given the fact that we have dal almost everyday, one gets tired of the same old dals, and keeps experimenting. This was one such experiment, which didn't go down too well with the family.

1 measure saboot urad dal soaked for 4-6 hours
1/2 bunch methi leaves
1 onion chopped fine
2 tsp ginger garlic paste
2 tsp jeera powder
2 tsp dhania powder
1 tsp red chilli powder
1 tbsp kasuri methi
2 tbsp cream
Salt to taste
cooking oil

Method
Cook the soaked dal in a pressure cooker (without salt) till soft
In a kadhai, fry the onions till transparent.
Add the methi leaves (de-stemmed and chopped) and fry till the raw smell goes.
Add ginger-garlic paste and the masalas and keep cooking on a low flame till the masala seperates from the side of the kadhai.
Pour in the dal, add water to attain the desired consistency, and cook on a low flame for about 10 minutes.
Crush the kasoori methi, add the cream, stir well, and serve.

Red lentil Soup, with a touch of the Konkan

Started out making a conventional red lentil soup, but got creative and ended up making something quite different. Tasted almost Thai, though the mix of ingredients could as well be from the Konkan coast. It tasted so good as a soup, I put a bit aside to have with roti at night, and one of these days, am serving it as a regular dal.

Pressure cook -
1 measure dhuli masoor dal
1 onion chopped
1/2 inch ginger grated
2-4 pieces of kokum

Fry/ dry roast 2 tbsp grated coconut, and 1 red chilli and temper the dal with it.

Add salt to taste and blend till it attains a smooth consistency.

Mixed veg Korambu

For some strange reason, my mother would only make this on Sankranti, to be eaten with Shakarai Pongal. The best part was the leftovers- she'd thicken them the next day, and it tasted even better than they did when fresh.

Soak half cup tur dal overnight, cook it and mash till soft.
Cook the veggies you want in tamarind water (1 cup water, and tamarind the size between a marble and a lime- discard the tamarind after taking out the pulp), with haldi and salt. Different veggies take different time to cook, so put them in the correct order so all get fully cooked at the same time.

Dry roast the following, and grind it into a masala-
6 red chillies
1 ½ tsp dhania
1 tsp chana dal
2 tbsp grated coconut

Add masala to the dal, and cook for two boils.

Add the veggies and bring to boil once.

Temper with -
Mustard
½ tsp methi
2 red chillies
Hing
Curry patta

The korambu is meant to be thicker than the normal sambhar, and tastes best with shakarai pongal (sweet pongal). Can also be had with dosas and idlis, but not so good with rice.

Moong pakodi ki subji

Saw this recipe in an article on pulses in Economic Times, and had to try it out. Hubby finished almost all of it off (except the bit that I had put in the dish to take a picture), which says it all.

 Soak moong dal overnight, drain out water and grind into a rough paste (I used sprouted moong, because that was available).
Make pakodis by putting blobs into hot oil using a spoon. Fry till crisp. Keep aside
Heat 1 tsp oil in kadhai. Put a pinch of hing, dhania powder, red chilli powder and haldi powder. When the raw smell goes, add water. Once the water starts boiling, reduce the flame, add the pakodas, and bring to boil.
I served it with dosas, but rotis are recommended.

Mum's Mixed-Dal Medley

This is my mum's go to recipe when she wants a dal slightly more exotic than pure "ghar ka dal". Apparently a friend of her's named it because she felt it deserved better than to be called "mixed dal dal".

Wash thoroughly and Soak overnight a mix of kala channa, saboot moong, saboot masoor and 1 tbsp chana dal (you can take the dals in any combination and proportions, but the chana dal is a must).
Pressure cook the dals with haldi and one tomato chopped fine till cooked.
Fry 1 medium onion chopped fine and 1 tsp g-g paste, with 1 tsp each of dhania powder, zeera powder, red chilli powder and garam masala powder, till the raw smell is replaced by a "fried" one.
Add the cooked dals and water, bring to boil, cover and let it cook for 2 or 3 minutes.
Garnish with dhania patta.

Be careful adding the water, because you don't want it to get too watery.