You will never really appreciate a good daal till you start cooking them
yourself. If you've only eaten daal at Indian restaurants, they can range
from being a soup to something like mashed potatoes. Daals make excellent
meatless main courses, delicious and protein rich.
Daals (a.k.a dahl /'däl
/) are dried legumes such as lentils, beans, or peas . Technically, the
split pulses are called daals, but many Americans and Europeans refer to
all Indian pulse dishes as daals. These side dishes do an excellent job of
balancing the flavors of an entire Indian meal. If the meal is spicy, you
want a mildly seasoned, bland daal to offset the heat. Or, if you're
serving the daal as a main course, accompanied by rice and bread, you may
love a robust spicy and aromatic daal, with ginger, garlic, chilies, and
roasted spices to highlight it as the center of the plate.
Daal can be considered as somewhat of an Indian comfort food. Specially
when it is served with Rice or Chapatis. There is something immensely
satisfying (and nutritious) about grains and beans together.
The varieties of names of daals available in your Indian grocery shop
may be intimidating. Often one bean may have different names depending on
if the bean is split, hulled, or whole, as in the case with Moong beans.
The good news is that in most cases, one daal can be substituted for
another with relative ease. As with pinto or black beans, you can cook up
a daal dish simply, with just a few seasonings. Or, you can go to town and
season them with a kettle full of flavorings. With the right seasonings,
the variations are endless, and endlessly delicious.
My favorite daal recipe is actually the simplest one. Masoor Daal with
Tomatoes. I serve it with Basmati rice flecked with toasted cumin seeds.
If you want to try it out, boil Masoor Daal with salt and turmeric powder
till it is half cooked. Add coarsely chopped tomatoes and continue cooking
till the daal is partially dissolved. Brown cumin seeds, red chili pods
and Bay leaf in canola oil and temper the cooked daal with it. Cover and
set it aside for a couple of minutes.
As with other legume dishes, daal freezes beautifully, so reheating a
batch requires almost no labor. So it is easy to keep some around for
whenever you want that Indian comfort food.
Daal recipes...