Daily meals should be simple, nutritious and satiating but no one talks about flavors... ofcouse every day meals can be as flavorful as those served at your favorite restaurants and the best flavors can only be achieved by using right ingredients in correct portions and adding them during the cooking process during the right time, this is exactly what the budding chefs are taught at the culinary schools. Talking about chefs and restaurants reminds me of my favorite dal makhani/ kali dal, which is laden with butter and cream and calories, which ofcourse we can have occasionally but we all know how we miss those flavors and aroma of our favorite dish, so what to do?!! ... fool our senses... yeap you're reading right we can surely fool our taste buds by fooling our olfactory nerve endings located in our upper part of interior nose which detect flavors. Using right seasoning achieves that.
So today thinking of my favourite dal makhani I decided to fool my senses and eat right, ofcourse without missing out all the fun. I used Ghee for tempering which gave dal right aroma and seasoned it in such a way that it right flavor.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup toor dal/pigeon pea lentils
1/4 cup whole urad dal/black lentils
1 1/2 tbs chili-ginger-garlic paste
1 tbs ghee/clarified butter for tempering
1 tsp cumin seeds/jeera
1/4 tsp asafoetida
1 medium sized onion chopped finely
2 tbs tomato paste/2 medium sized tomatoes finely chopped
1 tsp turmeric powder/haldi
1 tsp red chilli powder/kashmiri lal mirch powder
salt to taste
1-2 cups of water
handfull of chopped coriander leaves
Method:
Pressure cook the lentils/dal and keep aside.
Add ghee to heavy bottom pan and add cumin/jeera, once they start crackling add asafoetida and onions.
Saute for about a minute or two and add in tomato paste/chopped tomatoes and green chili-ginger-garlic paste. Let this sizzle for around 2 minutes.
Then add in turmeric and red chilli powder. Cook for a minute or so.
Add the cooked dal after mashing them a little with the back of a ladle.
Add water to adjust the consistency of dal, we don't want dal to be as thick as dal makhani rather. I almost added 1 & 1/2 cups of water to achieve the consistency shown in the snaps. So adjust water according to your needs.
Add salt to taste.
Let the dal sizzle for 5 more minutes then turn off the heat
Garnish it with chopped coriander/cilantro
Serve it with steamed rice or as a side dish along with paratha, naan or chapati of your choice. Goes along with any stir fried vegetables and chapati too.
Tips:
Serving this dal with rice steamed with cinnamon and cloves gives it nice additional aroma.
No comments:
Post a Comment