Skip to main content

The Dals of Punjab


If your knowledge of Punjabi cuisine comes from visits to dhabas and 'North Indian' restaurants, you can be excused for thinking that dal makhani is the only lentil dish eaten in Punjab. Made with whole black gram and laden with butter and spices, the delicious dal makhani is in fact a special occasion treat. Also, because it is tedious and takes a long time to cook, even Punjabis prefer getting a takeout of dal makhani from one of the many neighbourhood dhabas.

Also, the toor dal or arhar dal, a pulse that most of India (I'm thinking of you Gujarat, Maharashtra and UP) eats every day has no place in Punjabi cooking. My parents didn't even know such a thing existed until the first 'South Indian Dosa' place opened up in the 1980s and starting serving sambhar.

So what lentils do we cook then? A whole variety of them. In my home, where a lentil dish is cooked for dinner pretty much every day, the options range from the 'light' moong dal to both red and brown lentils. But our favourite dal is this combination of yellow split peas (chana dal) and split urad dal. It comes in two avatars that my brother and I dubbed yellow-white dal and black-yellow dal growing up. The first one is a combination of split peas with split and peeled urad dal (hence white). The second one has the same chana dal but uses split urad dal with its husk intact (hence black).

To make my family's favourite yellow-white dal, mix 1/2 cup each of chana dal and white urad dal. Wash thoroughly, then put in a pressure cooker with 4 cups of water, 1 tsp turmeric powder, 1 tsp red chilli powder and salt to taste. Cook for 6-7 whistles until the dal is soft and cooked through but you can still see individual grains. You need the consistency of a thick soup so if the dal appears too watery, put the pan back on heat and boil until the excess water dries off. You can now set the dal aside until you are ready to eat.

Just before eating, temper the dal. Chop 1 onion finely. Heat 1 tbsp ghee in a small pan. Add 1 tsp cumin seeds and wait until they start to splutter. Add the chopped onion and stir fry until the onion turns golden. Pour the tempering into the dal, stir to mix and sprinkle garam masala and optionally, finely chopped coriander leaves to garnish.

If you are making black-yellow dal, follow exactly the same process but change the mix to 3/4 cup chana dal and 1/4 cup split urad dal.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Kadhi Chawal

I just can't think of what to write today. That's what my absolute favorite meal does to me, I just want to stop talking and dig right in. So I won't ramble and go straight on the recipe for kadhi. First, make the pakoras that would go in the kadhi. Slice an onion lengthwise. Make a batter with 1/2 cup chickpea flour (besan), salt, red chilli powder and water. Dip onions in this batter and deep fry until crisp. Keep aside. Now blend 1 cup yogurt and 1/3 cup besan into a paste. Add 3-4 cups water to make a very thin blend. Heat a tbsp of oil in a pan. Add a tsp each of mustard seeds, cumin seeds, ajwain (carom seeds) and methre (fenugreek seeds). Let splutter for a few seconds. Now add a large onion, cut lengthwise into thin slices and cook until browned lightly. Pour in the yogurt/besan mix and add 1 tsp turmeric powder, 1 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp red chilli powder. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and let simmer for at least half an hour. You have to stir this occasio...

Potato Naan

I know what you see up there is a naan. But let's pretend for a moment we are making bread. For I had bookmarked this recipe for potato bread a zillion years ago. And that's what I set to make. Chopped and boiled 100 gms potatoes until they are soft. Mashed them along with 3/4 cup of water they were boiled in. While the potatoes were boiling, I added a tsp of sugar to 1/4 cup warm water, then sprinkled a tsp of yeast and let it proof for 10 minutes. To the potato/water mix, I added a cup each of whole wheat flour and plain flour, 1/2 tsp salt as well as the yeast. Once everything was mixed well, I put the dough on a flour-dusted surface and kneaded it for 10 minutes or so. It was a fairly wet dough, but got it to get smooth. Oiled a large bowl and put the dough in it to rise to double it's size. By the time the first rise ended after an hour or so, I didn't want the bread. I wanted a naan instead. And if someone deserves to throw a tantrum after days of sniv...

Dukkah

Talk about myths busted. I went to Dubai planning to buy zat'ar, the fragrant herb and spice mix. And Dukkah, the interesting blend of nuts and spices. Not sumac, because I still have a pack left in my fridge. So zat'ar was easy - every Carrefour supermarket had that one. But no one had dukkah and I was like, how can they not have dukkah? It's a middle eastern thing, right! But well, they don't sell dukkah in Dubai, so I came back and armed with recipes from 10-odd blogs (all roughly the same), I set to make my own. The key to making dukkah is : line up all your ingredients, toast each of them separately in a heavy non-stick pan till they are fragrant and lightly roasted, then put everything in a blender and grind coarsely. This is your dukkah. Now dip your bread in olive oil, then dip it in dukkah and indulge. A final word of warning: this can be highly addictive. And finally, my list of ingredients: 1/4 cup almonds 2 tbsp coriander seeds 1 1/2 tbsp sesame...