MASOOR KI DAAL (RED LENTILS)

I promised myself when I started this blog that I would never post a masoor ki dal dish. When I initially went to the United States, it was one of the first things I learnt to cook. When I was a broke graduate student and then a struggling entry-level assistance worker in Washington, D.C., I ate it to death. It was a boring, easy-to-make staple that I didn’t think it deserved its own blog article. Here I am, three years later, offering a masoor ki dal dish.

My younger sister has been asking me for months why I don’t have a basic daal recipe on the site. I do, in fact, make kalee dal and masoor moong dal. Both are wonderful. My sister, on the other hand, is a firm believer in the masoor ki daal religion and is terrified of cooking, so she requested the easiest recipe imaginable.

I’ve been cooking my way through Sameen Rushdie’s Indian Cookery for the past month. She describes the ‘ghontna’ procedure, in which the daal is stirred quickly with a wooden spoon to get the desired consistency. I understand that this isn’t exactly revolutionary. This is something I should have understood years ago, yet it has changed my life. It finally allowed me to achieve a thick, creamy texture in my daal, to the point where I believe it now deserves its own post.

The masoor ki daal recipe below is a pretty simple version of one that I made at home. You can make the recipe as fancy as you like. Whole green chilies, sliced tomatoes, and fresh coriander leaves are included in Sameen’s recipe. To add sourness, you can also use other types of greens (for example, spinach) and tamarind. Fresh kadi pata (curry leaves), dried chiles, and white cumin seeds make up the tadka/bhagar (tempering) she advises for this daal. I’ve merely used a simple tadka of chopped yellow onions, which was more typical in my home. Both are fantastic. While tempering is optional, I strongly advise it.