Calling all lentil lovers: help me test a dal bhaat recipe! 15 February 2008 11:53 am
Posted by Tracy in : cooking,friends,nepal,recipes,vegan,vegetarian , trackbackHey kids! If you don’t have meal plans for this weekend, allow me to make a suggestion: delicious dal bhaat, Nepali lentils with rice. In particular, I’d love the hell out of it if you tried the recipe in this post and let me know how it turns out. I’ve made a few changes from my first attempt, mostly in the combination of dal used, but I’ve got suggestions about that in case you don’t have (and don’t want to acquire) an extensive collection of dried pulses (which describes my pantry remarkably well, but I digress). So. If you think you might be up for a little weekend adventure cooking, read on!
Dal bhaat recipe, take 2
A few preliminary notes: It might help to think of this dal as not like a stew but more of a sauce for rice. Or you could eat it as a soup, but I’ve got a recipe to suggest as an alternative to that. Just sayin’. The other thing I want to point out is that this recipe makes a lot of food, especially if served over rice, so you might want to halve it if you don’t have a lot of people helping you eat it (on the other hand, it’s super-cheap, so you could invite friends over for a dal bhaat party for way less than the price of ordering pizza). As for the rice, I learned to eat dal like this on long-grain white rice, so that’s what I recommend, and there’s plenty of time to make it while the dal cooks. If you want to serve the dal on brown rice, you should probably get that started first to be on the safe side.
What You Need (Ingredients and Equipment)
- cutting board, knives, measuring cups and spoons
- decent sized cooking pot (3-4 quarts)
- something to stir hot stuff with
- 250 grams (about 1/2 pound or 1 to 1 1/4 cups) dal: I like a mix of red lentils and black and yellow split mung beans (urad dal and moong dal, respectively), about 100 grams (~1/2 cup) each of the red and yellow, and just 50 grams (~1/4 cup) of the black to mix up the color and texture. But really: use what you’ve got, as long as it’s a dried split bean or pea that goes mushy if you cook it for long enough. Yellow split peas, red lentils, dried split mung beans of any color — even brown lentils will work if you’re willing to cook them long enough.
- vegetable oil
- 1 small to medium onion, chopped fairly fine
- 4-6 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1-2 inches fresh ginger, also minced
- 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
- 1/2 teaspoon cumin
- 1 1/2 teaspoon coriander
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt (that’s 1/2 teaspoon of the finer grained table salt or sea salt)
- Optional for spice wimps, but delicious: 3-4 whole dried chilis, chopped (alternatively, use 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon cayenne)
What You Do
Rinse the dal in cold water — it will cook pretty quickly but you can speed it up even more by leaving it to soak while you prep the rest of the ingredients. Now is also a good time to check the dal for little stones and stuff, and pick those out — depending on your dal, you might be fine, but there’s always a chance of extra-crunchy bits, which are hard on the teeth, to put it mildly, so take care. Drain and set aside.
Heat 1-2 tablespoons of oil over medium-high heat (or just medium if you’re taking your time, in which case add a minute or two to all the times here), then add the onions and sweat 2-3 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they start turning translucent but not really browning. Add the garlic and ginger and continue cooking for another minute or so until deliciously aromatic.
Next, add the spices. They will stick to the bottom of the pan and that’s okay. Add the drained dal and stir everything together until the lentils and so forth are well-coated with spices and oil.
Pour in a little water, maybe 1/4 to 1/2 cup and scrape the bottom of the pan to free the spices. Add more water as needed and keep scraping until the bottom of the pan is relatively clear, then add water for a grand total of six cups, and bring everything to a boil.
Reduce the heat until the contents of the pot are simmering instead of threatening to boil over, and cook the dal for at least half an hour, until the red lentils have turned from their raw orange-pink color to yellow, and the urad and moong dal are tender (taste a spoonful; if it’s crunchy or even al dente, give it another ten minutes or so).
Meanwhile, make rice however you like; as I said above, 30 minutes should be plenty of time for long-grain white rice, which is my preferred vehicle for this dal. If you want to serve the dal on brown rice, starting it first might be the way to go, or else you can just let your dal cook longer.
If the dal gets done before the rice, just keep it warm on your stove’s lowest setting.
Leftover dal can be refrigerated and reheats well; I’ve kept batches for as long as a week but that might have been pushing my luck; I should really get in the habit of freezing anything that doesn’t get eaten in three or four days, just to be on the safer side.
Anyway, happy weekend, and if you try this recipe, please let me know how it turned out!
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CJ
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