A part of most lunches or dinner, the yellow dal can be cooked in so many ways. I have various favorite dals (lentils) but this is one I tend to cook up when I am very hungry and have very little time to cook. Or if I have a heavy side dish, and I want something easy to go with the rice.
Let’s start.
Ingredients
Lentils – 1 cup – I am using the Pigeon peas yellow lentils
Cumin seeds – ½ teaspoon
Garlic – crushed 3 cloves
Dried red chili – 1
Green chili - 2 slit
Asafetida – ¼ teaspoon
Curry leaf – few
Ghee / Clarified butter - 1 tablespoon
Mustard seeds – ½ teaspoon
Turmeric – ½ teaspoon
Salt – as per taste
½ a lime juice
Method
Wash and soak lentils for a minimum of 10 minutes. You can also soak it for 30 – 45 minutes. This helps the lentils cook faster.
Boil the lentils in a pressure cooker for 3 whistles. Allow the pressure to release naturally.
If you are using a pot to boil the lentils, let it cook for 40 minutes stirring occasionally.
Once the lentils are boiled, keep them aside.
Now in a pot, heat some ghee, add in the mustard seeds and let them splutter. Add the cumin seeds and crushed garlic. Add dried red chilies and curry leaf and add the green chilies and asafetida. Once the garlic turns slightly brown, add turmeric and the boiled lentils.
Add salt.
Let it come to a boil.
Add the juice of half a lime.
Switch off the flame.
Garnish with some coriander leaves and its done.
I cook every day. Well, almost every day. And there are days where I cook multiple recipes. Having said that, I am not an authentic or professional chef. Many of my recipes are experiments as I try to adapt and use the ingredients I already have.
My mantra is you should cook food just the way you like it. I don’t mean any disrespect to traditional methods of cooking or any cultures where the cuisine originates from. But I merely try to cook it with what I have and what is available to me and sometimes, I add ingredients that I want to use up.
All photos are my own.
All photos are shot on a mobile phone.