Lemon Dal

I just made this.  I don't know if I did everything right, but it sure tastes great!

Lemon Dal

1/2 Cup toor dal
1/2 tsp ginger, finely grated
1/2” ginger, julienne-cut
1/4 tsp turmeric

1 green chili pepper (or two taste) finely chopped, seeded or not, your choice
a few curry leaves
1 tablespoon oil
1/2 tsp urad dal
1/2 tsp black mustard seeds
1 red chili, broken into pieces
1 pinch asafoetida
salt; to taste

Add salt, scraped ginger and turmeric cook the toor dal, either by pressure cooking (4 whistles, or about eight minutes in a jigger-type cooker.)  
Fry the julienne-cut ginger and green chili pepper for 1-2 minutes in a separate frying pan.   Add to cooked dal along with lemon juice (1/2 lemon, or a full large lemon, if you like the sharp taste of lemon as I do) and curry leaves and simmer for a few minutes.
In a separate skillet (I used the same one for the ginger/green chili) add heat oil and add urad dal, and as it starts to brown a bit, the mustard seeds.  When the mustard seeds stop popping, add hing and a broken red dried chili.  Fry for a few seconds, and pour into the dal.  Cover and let sit for five minutes.
Garnish with a few thin lemon slices.

Serves two.  PS - I ate the whole batch in one sitting, so perhaps next time I'll double the ingredients.

Re: Lemon Dal

what is lemon dal? and would i find these things at a co-op? because i doubt the grocery stores up here would have those ingredients i have never seen in their stocks..then again, there is an international specialty store here..this is exciting! all these new foods, and they are all foreign to me!

Re: Lemon Dal

It's easier than you think, Suni.  “Lemon Dal” is toor dal cooked with enough lemon juice to make it a main taste in the dish.  You should be able to find toor dal at any Indian grocery store.  It is my most-used dal.  But that's just my style of cooking.  I think whole mung dal and black gram dal is more popular in northern recipes.

Re: Lemon Dal

i cant say i've heard of any of those dishes..but that's why i joined! to learn these new dishes and try them out :D

Re: Lemon Dal

SUNI: When I first started cooking Indian (and I consider myself an advanced beginner) years ago, I had some misconceptions to overcome first.  All the restaurants where I live (Midwest - USA) were northern Indian and probably modified for the American palate.  Back then, this food did not appeal to me.  (It does now, however.)   We've discussed the whole 'curry' issue, the fact that curries are merely any dish with a gravy.  I think it was the Brits who started this whole 'curry powder' thing.  That was the big one for me to work through.  Then about 14 years ago, a new restaurant opened that featured south Indian food.  I went and immediately fell in love with the tastes.  The curried eggplant was fantastic, and the meal was served with ramekins of delights, dal, yoghurt, etc.  It was fantastic and I went often.  I noticed that the clientele was almost all Indian.  I went back there this weekend after all these years and was horrified by the changes in the menu.  The food was okay (I could do better) and the entrees didn't even come with rice!  All ramekin items were side dishes, and the staff was 100% American/European.  As were the clients.  The management had changed and so had the food and the clientele.  Needless to say, I won't go back there.  We have a number of very good Indian restaurants.  I went to a lunch buffet last month that was perhaps the single best meal I have ever had, all s. Indian dishes.  It was incredible.

However, I am not rich and cook at home, exept for the above noted two outings.

Dal is very important to the Indian diet and might be a good place for you to start.  It's pretty simple.  Here is a simple mung dal recipe.  These ladies are fantastic and you might want to explore their videos and check out their website.  Also, you will see two different ways to prepare the dal.  This video is a good introduction to cooking a simple dal.  I love dal dishes. 

If you want to try it and have a pressure cooker, all that 'whistle' talk might be confusing.  “One whistle” would translate to about 3-4 minutes of pressure with a jigger type pressure cooker.   You can also cook the dal in a saucepan.  The trick is to wash the dal, bring it to a boil, then turn it way down and cover with the lid ajar.  I rest it at an angle and works fine.  Keep an eye on it and add water as necessary, just in little bits.  You will see the dal slowly swell and eventually start to turn into a thin pudding consistency.  Some people like their dal to still retain a bit of the shape, and others just cook it down all the way.  Mung dal should not take too long.  The funny thing is I usually burned lentils (Middle Eastern style) when I kept the heat too high, and the substance was too heavy.  However, cooking dal as I have described above results in well cooked, unburned dal for me. 

You will get the idea from this video.  Another good intro video for dal is this older Indian woman.  Her recipes are also very tasty.  Here is a video of her making toor dal (my favorite dal) and again, dividing the cooked dal into half and preparing it two different ways, one with mixed vegetables and the other with a tempering, a common ending for many Indian dishes.  Manjula.

The tempering is a process of adding hot spices at the very end of the cooking.  Typically it works like this:  heat oil, add spices (like black mustard seeds and cumin, usually 1 tsp. each), and when the mustard seeds start to pop, hing is often added (Asafoetida; use just a pinch) and immediately add a few dried red chillies and some fresh curry leaves (available at the Indian grocery stores.)  And after just a few seconds, pour this hot spicy oil mix into the dal pot and cover and let set for a few minutes.  Coriander (cilantro) chopped is usually added to the finished dish before serving.  I forget the Indian term for 'tempering.'

The dal variations are mind-boggling, but excellent for the stomach.