The Pleasures of Indian Dal + A Recipe! ~ I (HEART) Retail Therapy

The Pleasures of Indian Dal + A Recipe!

You may not know this about me...but I am totally gaga over Bollywood movies, sarees and Indian cuisine. Yesssssss, Indian cuisine! Whether it's Kashmiri, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Marwari, Gharwal and Pahari, Awadh, Luchnawi, Andhra Pradesh, Telengana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, or Karnataka, my palette spans the Indian subcontinent and I have yet to be disappointed.

Furthermore, if I could find a nice old Indian woman to cook traditional dishes for me every night, a serious carnivore such as myself could become a vegetarian, with absolutely no remorse or regret. With all the exotic cuisines I have tried, no culture has perfected the art of the vegetarian dish that could sway carnivores such as myself to the green side like the Indians. The mixture of sour, sweet and spicy usually results in an aromatic, sense and taste bud nirvana that is second only to the real nirvana. Which brings me to Dal...

There are many types of dal from all corners of India...dal is basically a lentil dish and oh, how India has perfected the lentil! This particular recipe is a mashup of other recipes I have come across (most of the authors I have forgotten, so my apologies) but largely based on a recipe I found from Whole Foods. Without further ado:

I HEART Retail Therapy's Indian Dal Recipe

Ingredients
2 cups of lentils, sorted and rinsed
2 tbsp EVOO
1 yellow onion
1 tsp of cumin seeds
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
4 cloves of garlic
2 tbsps finely chopped ginger
4 cups of veggie broth
1 1/2 cups chopped tomatoes with juice
1/3 cup fresh cilantro
1 tsp ground turmeric
1/4 tsp fine himalayan salt
1 jalapeno

Heat oil in a large pot over medium high heat. Add onions and cook until softened (about 5 minutes). Add cumin, cardamom, garlic, ginger and cook, stirring often, until fragrant (about 2-3 minutes). Add broth, lentils, tomatoes, cilantro, turmeric, salt and jalapeno and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium low, cover and simmer, stirring often until lentils are soft (about 15 minutes). Serve over rice or by itself.

**Special note: I have substituted the veggie broth for chicken broth (I am not a vegetarian) and it came out delicious. With dals, the fresher the ingredients the better. However you can use what is in your spice cabinet, you just may have to tweak the quantities. Also the recipe calls for the lentils to be cooked in about 15 minutes and with red lentils it can cook that quickly; however, with the yellow lentils (or green lentils) it usually takes about 30-40 minutes to get soft. I also throw kale in my dish, some people add mixed veggies or nothing else at all.**

This is the finished deliciousness. I attempted to take a pretty picture for the blog but in reality getting the juices and mixing up the lentils in rice (I used jasmine) is really the key...and a lot less prettier.

As Always, Happy Eating!!