Authentic Indian yellow dal Recipe

Is daal/dal the new butter chicken? I ask this because I see a lot of people around the world making daal these days, this humble dish has become a part of almost every home around the world now. I follow so many of you and I see you guys making daal very regularly in your kitchen and that is awesome, some of you call it Dahl or Dhal or dal, whatever you call it, this dish remains the same simple humble everyday soup packed with proteins and many textures. Daal can be made in many ways and each region in India makes it differently, I am sharing with you my version which is rather simple and uncomplicated. The one in the picture here is Toor daal/ Arhar daal or you can call it yellow daal.

This is something that I cook almost every day, I find this particular daal extremely comforting and reminds me of my mum’s kitchen. We eat daal with rice and any vegetable, if you want to add extra flavor to this daal and take it to another level then just add 1/2 teaspoon or 1 teaspoon of hot melted ghee. Trust me this little addition will make your daal magical. If you add the ghee then there is absolutely no need to add the frills like cumin or onion, tomatoes, etc. Ghee is magical when added to simply boiled daal.

 

Prep Time: 1 hour (time required  to soak daal in water)

Cooking Time: 1 hour. If you use a pressure cooker then just 10 minutes.

 

Ingredients:

Toor daal or Arhar daal: 1 cup

Water to soak: 2 cups

Water to cook with: 6 cups

Turmeric powder: 1/2  teaspoon

Salt to taste

 

For tempering or tadka (in Hindi):

PLEASE NOTE IF YOU WANT TO EAT DAAL WITH JUST GHEE THEN ADD MELTED WARM GHEE TO BOILED COOKED DAAL AND ENJOY IT. BUT IF YOU WANT TO ADD SOME EXTRA FLAVOURS THEN  YOU CAN DO THIS TADKA BELOW.

TADKA CAN BE MADE IN MORE THAN 100 WAYS, I AM MAKING THE SIMPLEST ONE ALSO THIS IS WHAT I LIKE TO EAT EVERYDAY.

 

Less drama tadka ingredients:

Red chilli powder: 1/2 teaspoon (  You can use hot paprika powder) If you wanna skip this, you can do that too.

Ghee or any veg oil: 1 tablespoon

Cumin seeds: 1/2 teaspoon

 

Method:

1. Wash daal nicely and soak it in 2 cups of water for 1 hour.
2. Drain out the water and boil it in a pan with 6 cups of water with little salt and turmeric and 3-4 drop of oil.
   You need to stir the dal in between to make sure it does not stick to the bottom of the pan. You need to add more water if daal is not properly cooked. It would take around 1 hour for it to be properly boiled. If you are using a pressure cooker then 4 whistles are good also you need to just add 2 cups of water and not 6.
3. To know if it is cooked, try to squish the lentil/daal with the back of a spoon, if it gets squished easily then daal is cooked.
4. You can consume daal at this point too. This is the basic daal.  Enjoyed best when you add a bit of hot ghee on daal just before eating.
5. If you want to add more flavours to your humble daal then make the tadka.
6. In a separate small pan, heat up ghee (preferably) or any vegetable oil.
7. After the oil gets hot, lower the heat.
8. Add the cumin seeds, the red chilli powder (if you have great, if you don’t have you can skip this. But I like the red chilli flavour, it adds a bit of colour which makes it interesting).
9. Take this and spread the tadka oil over the cooked daal.
10. Daal is ready to be served.

 

Some additional tips to flavour your daal:

1. You can even add garlic along with cumin and red chilli powder to the oilSlow cook the garlic (1-2 cloves are fine) and add to your daal.
2. You can even fry tomatoes and thinly sliced onions with some garam masala, garlic. Let this all cook well for 5-6 minutes then you can dunk this mixture to your plain yellow boiled daal. This tastes good too.

 

Learn how to make glutenfree chapatis here.