not-so-khatti-daal

Alright, let's just hope the Hyderabadi aunties don't come chasing after me with a beylan, because I made some sort of daal today and am insisting on calling it Khatti* Daal (Hyderabadi style lentils).

Reasons why it may not be considered authentic:
I used mixed daal.
I didn't think about making it khatti daal until it was halfway done. That's when I added the tomato :)
I didn't put sliced garlic in the bhagaar**
I made up my own recipe.

Reasons why I call it Khatti Daal:
I put imli/tamarind in it.
I put lemon juice in it.
It's khatti.

I admit it, I've never made Khatti Daal and have never been taught how to make it. I just always thought it was a tedious job. It really isn't. All you do is cook the daal with salt to taste, a bunch of masaley/spices (red chili powder, coriander powder, garlic and ginger paste), chopped green chilies and diced tomato, until it's nice and mushy and smooth (I used a whisk to get it all blended), then you add the tamarind juice (soak a few imli pods in a cup of hot water, and squeeze everything out of it, strain water it into the daal), lemon juice and then bhagaar with zeera/cumin, whole dried red chilies and supposedly sliced garlic. Gah. Oh oh also curry leaves!

I believe the most common daal used for Khatti Daal is Masoor (red lentils), but I may be wrong. I used this mixed daal I bought from the Indian store, which is a combination of masoor, mung, chana (split chickpeas), toor (yellow pigeon peas) and mash/urud (black gram). It turned out good, and was great over white rice.

I just love me some fresh cooked daal-chaawal (lentils with rice):

Make some Daal, boys; even if you don't wanna call it Khatti, it's still going to taste yummey.
Don't forget the cilantro!

*khatti : sour, tart
**bhagaar : frying spices in a few tablespoons of oil till reddish, then pouring the oil and spices over the cooked dish, in this case, daal. Cover for a few minutes, and serve hot.

the dal and i

So. I never really consciously wondered how people make the dry kind of dal, but when I did think about it, I was like, how do they get it just right? As in, how do you not get the dal too soft or pasty, how do you know how much water to boil it in? And then my mom told me, genius that she is, all you really do is you boil it till its right and then you just throw the rest of the water out. Whaaatt.

I felt sort of dumb after that.

But I'm over it now. And I made some dal the other day and it turned out pretty good, if I may say so myself.

Also, nobody ever told me Maash and Urad are the same dal? (dumb moment #2)

So. Here's what you do. You get yourself a cup or two of dal - maash, chana, whatever. You boil it in a lot of water, and wait till it's soft but not pasty and throw the water out. In a separate pan/wok you fry up some zeera/cumin seeds, kari patta/curry leaves, ginger, garlic, an onion and such, you season it with salt, haldi/turmeric and red chili powder and just add your little boiled dal to it and let everything get nice and spicy. Oh and you can add a chopped tomato too, I didn't have any. And a dash of lemon juice. And cilantro.

I love cilantro.

So the dal was a hit. Look forward to making more of it for the boy when he's off his juice fast! Insha Allah.

I'll try to write more structured and accurate recipes in the future. Promise.