TracyFood

Recipe-in-progress: translating Nepali dal bhaat to my Oregon kitchen. 20 November 2007 2:09 pm

Posted by Tracy in : cooking, nepal, pictures, recipes, travel, vegan, vegetarian , trackback

First things first, some definitions: dal means lentils, or really any kind of dried pulses, and bhaat means cooked rice (as opposed to rice plants growing in a field, or just the grains: green rice, brown rice, hulled rice, or rice milled to turn pretty white but not yet cooked). Put them together into dal bhaat and you have white rice with a thin lentil stew (almost a soup), and it is just about synonymous with food in Nepal. It is superfood and comfort food all at once, and it is delicious. We did not eat it every day of our trek in Nepal, but in my case not for lack of wanting to; when we didn’t have dal bhaat, it was usually because we had filled up on all the other delicious food, and I’m pretty sure it was always available. Some days we ate it twice, and I maintain that it was tastier every single time. By dinner time on our second day of trekking, I had resolved to “always leave room for dal bhaat” (it says so in my little paper journal entries of October 15 and everything). But I digress.

Ten days ago, my mom emailed me these recipes, and by last Friday, when I realized it had been almost two weeks since my last dal bhaat, I decided I had better give it a shot, if only to avoid going into withdrawal. Here’s how it went.

Update, 15 March 2008: This recipe is pretty good, but I’m pretty sure my February 15 revision is better, and I’d really appreciate it if you’d give it a test. Once again, the new and improved version can be found at my February 15 entry, Calling all lentil lovers: help me test a dal bhaat recipe, and thanks!

What I Used (Ingredients and Equipment)

In Words:

180 g red lentils (7/8 cup, which may not have been enough)
60 g black lentils (just shy of 1/2 cup, which may have been a bit much)
4 cloves garlic, minced
olive oil
1 onion
maybe 1 inch ginger, grated
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
salt
2 whole dried chilis
lots of water
medium saucepan
heatproof spatula for stirring
cutting board and knife and grater for veggie prep

In Pictures (somewhat incomplete):

What I Did

First, I minced the garlic and let it sit around while I did all the other ingredient prep and started the recipe, having read somewhere that the “chop and sit” ritual activates more of garlic’s magic properties than just plain cooking and eating it. I have no idea if this is true, but it pleased me to do it at the time; I am by no means endorsing this method because I certainly feel all kinds of silly writing it down now, so I’m switching back into “here’s what you do” recipe writing mode.

When the onions and garlic and ginger are prepped to your satisfaction (there should be roughly twice as much garlic as ginger), heat the oil in the pan over medium heat (enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan, plus some for deliciousness and plain old good luck). When it’s hot, sauté the onions until translucent, 2-5 minutes. Next, add the garlic and ginger. When those smell awesome, add the turmeric, which will not smell particularly awesome but you’ve got to love the color. Add the lentils and stir until coated with oil and awesomeness. Add a little water and stir; repeat until the bottom of the pan is relatively clear of burned-on spices and suchforth. Finally, add at least enough water to cover all the lentils, but I recommend more — make sure they’re covered by at least an inch of water, enough to move around freely as they cook (and remember, they will expand as they cook, and in the case of the red lentils, they will freaking explode, so add more water than you think is really necessary and have a pint or so around ready to add when you need more). Bring the dal to a boil; reduce to a simmer and cook for at least half an hour (30 minutes), until the red lentils have changed from orange to yellow and the black lentils are very tender. Give it a stir every five to ten minutes and add more water as needed to reach and maintain a soupy consistency. It will look more or less like this as it cooks:

(This is fairly early on in the process; if you look closely you can see that the red lentils are still orange.)

Meanwhile, cook your rice: I made 300 grams (about 1 cup) in 450 mL (a little under 2 cups) of water, in a rice cooker because it’s fun and easy. Because you’ve got some time on your hands while you’re waiting for the lentils to cook, you could make some tarkari (vegetable curry with whatever vegetables you’ve got in the house) or saag (delicious, delicious greens — in Nepal it was mostly mustard greens and we ate those just about every day, too). Don’t forget to taste everything before you serve it, and especially don’t forget to season it to taste with salt (but not too much, especially if you’re planning to reheat leftovers).

To serve dal bhaat Nepali-style, make a big pile of cooked rice on a plate and put the dal (and tarkari and saag, if you’ve got them) alongside it, like so:

You mix it together as you eat it, of course, but it always started out in more or less separate, just barely overlapping, piles of deliciousness. And that’s my first attempt at dal bhaat, but if my experiences eating it are any indication, it will get better and better every time (which reminds me — this makes a good six-eight servings, and the leftovers reheat very well and are if anything more delicious than the original).

Notes

Like I mentioned in my ingredients list, I think I was a little light on the red lentils, and a little heavy on the black ones. I got the idea of doing a combination from Dawayandu, the wife of our sirdar (lead Sherpa), Nawang, who generously had us over for lunch at her home on November 2. I’m guessing a 4 to 1 ratio of red lentils to black lentils might be better, but I’m also thinking of mixing things up still further with maybe some yellow split peas. Mmmm.

This dal is not very spicy at all; next time I will probably chop or crush up the dried red chilis so that they release more of their deliciousness, and I will probably use more, too, or spice up whatever curry I serve alongside.

Although I was plenty pleased by the results of this first experiment, I liked the reheated leftovers even better; the lentils had mooshed up even more and all the flavors had mingled delightfully (as always, don’t underestimate the secret ingredient of time). So don’t worry about making too much — this recipe makes a good six to eight servings of dal (though the aforementioned 300 grams of rice is only three small servings, and far fewer by Nepali standards). If you had lots of side dishes, like saag and tarkari, this might even qualify as ten servings. Yum!

TracyFood

You could be right, Twisty Wurm (heck, you probably are) --- that's part of the magic of shopping my friendly local Asian supermarket. Even when the labels are in English, there's no telling if the translation is trustworthy! And yet I keep coming away with deliciousness for the win! Woo!