How to cook dal properly. Dal (Dhal) - Indian soup. Serve on the table

What is dal and how to prepare it? Read our traditional recipe

First, let's clear up the confusion in terms. Dal is both beans, of which there are more than 20 types, and pureed soups made from these beans. We'll talk about soup, but let's not forget about beans, because you can make soup from different beans and get different flavors and variations.

What is dal?

Dal or dhal is the main dish of Indian cuisine, which is prepared on the basis of dal beans, vegetables, coconut milk, and a lot of spices. It is very easy to prepare, the soup turns out tasty, nutritious, and dal is rightly called a worthy response from vegetarians to those who claim that a person cannot live without meat.

The essence of the dish is to boil beans and vegetables to the point where they can be easily pureed. As in any Indian dish, there are a lot of spices in the soup, and they are not just a flavoring additive - maximum attention is paid to the selection and arrangement of spices. In India, dal is most often prepared from small moong peas or red lentils; in other countries, such as Russia, it can be cooked from peas.

Dal - basic cooking principles

Any beans should be washed and soaked for several hours before cooking. An hour is enough for red lentils, 3-4 hours for green or peas. The beans are cooked until they can be easily mashed with your fingers. Salt the dal at the end, when the soup is ready. 5 minutes before the soup is ready, heat the ghee and fry the spices in it. Lastly, add coconut milk (this is not necessary for us) and garnish with herbs.

Ghi butter is easy to make - just take a little more butter than the recipe calls for, melt it and skim off the foam. What will remain is a clear oil that will not foam or fizz when heated - this is Ghee oil. Pour it into the frying pan where you will fry the spices. The classic dal spice mix consists of garam masala (a basic Indian spice blend), cumin, turmeric, ginger, salt and asafoetida. If there is no garam masala, you can make it yourself, choosing spices according to your mood, but in any case, it must contain five main components - turmeric, coriander, pepper, ginger, garlic. Without this, the taste and aroma of the dal will not even come close to the original. It is very important not to burn anything and add spices consistently. First, fry the cumin in a hot ghee, then ginger, garlic, coriander and then the garam masala mixture. In total, the spices are fried for a minute to one and a half with continuous stirring. There should be three times more oil than spices. If the recipe contains tomatoes, then they are added to the fried spices and then the sauce is poured into the almost finished lentils.

Red Lentil Dal (Traditional Recipe)

Ingredients: 200 gr. dry lentils, 2 liters of water, 2 carrots, 2 tomatoes, 3 tea. l. turmeric, 5-7 tbsp. l. ghee butter, salt to taste, 2 tbsp. l. garam oil mixture, salt to taste. You also need one coconut, but in our conditions it can be replaced with cream (to soften the taste).

Wash the lentils and soak for an hour. Set to simmer and cook until the lentils are soft. Scald the tomatoes with boiling water and remove the skin. Cut the pulp into cubes. Grate the carrots. When the lentils are soft, heat the ghee, fry the spices, then add the tomatoes and carrots. Lightly fry the vegetables, add water to form a sauce and transfer it to the pan with the lentils. After five minutes, remove from heat, add salt to taste, and chop the lentils with a masher or blender. Pour coconut milk or cream into the prepared dal, heat (but do not boil!) and let sit for 5-10 minutes. The dal is served in small bowls, garnished with greens.

Dal is a healthy, colorful, tasty and very easy to prepare food.

In addition, dal is very tolerant of substituting components, so it can be prepared even without a complete list of necessary products.

Food is one of the things without which not a single person on earth can live. Many people create a diet and maintain it for a certain period of time, but the time comes when you want something new. Dishes from other countries will help diversify your food. For example, Indian food is quite interesting in taste and easy to prepare. Many people are interested in what dal is. In fact, this is one of the popular and savory dishes of the eastern country. This is a traditional spicy creamy soup based on boiled legumes.

Origin of the dish

Dal soup is the national dish of India, which is very easy to prepare and you can enjoy the taste for as long as you like. In addition, it contains many useful substances and vitamins. For example, soup contains a lot of protein and can be combined with different ingredients. Tomatoes, garlic, lemon juice, curry and more are often added to it.

In order to understand what dal is, you just need to decipher the name of the dish. It means "beans". Thus, when starting to cook, they choose their favorite variety of this plant and make a real culinary masterpiece out of it. Most often, puree soup can be found in places such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Naples, and this is a mistake of modern times, because you need to prepare an amazing dish in every country. It is healthy, simple and incredibly tasty. Hot soup can be prepared in various ways, you just need to choose the most suitable one.

The essence of dal soup

Along with the question of what gave, another one arises. How to cook it? The bottom line is that the beans and vegetables must be boiled so much that it is possible to mix everything into a puree. Naturally, you need to add spices to the dish - this is an integral ingredient. Thus, cooked beans will replace any meat (in terms of vitamin content) and feed everyone around. India is a country where everyone adheres to the principles of vegetarianism, so people spent a lot of time creating dal soup.

It is also interesting that there are a lot of varieties of beans, but preference is given to red varieties, followed by green and black fruits. It is most beneficial to eat dal soup in the summer, when it is really hot outside. The dish is perfectly filling, and in winter it also allows you to warm up.

Basic cooking rule

There are certain rules and principles that should be followed. The first is preparing the beans. The fruits must be soaked before cooking. You should also make ghee (from butter). Finally, chefs and locals roast it before adding it to the beans. As for vegetables, you can add carrots, onions, garlic, chili peppers, tomatoes, coriander, cauliflower and much more to the soup. In fact, there are no specific restrictions; the cook himself has the right to choose the ingredients for his dish.

The secret of India's national dish

Indians know that spices are the main ingredient of dal soup. The recipe is very simple, and some components can be changed. But everything related to spices is non-negotiable - this is the main element, indispensable in the cooking process. After frying them, they should stand for a while. You can add spices only at the end of cooking. The classic soup contains ginger, turmeric, salt, asafoetida and cumin. You can also add curry leaves, black and white pepper, coriander, nutmeg, dry garlic, mustard seeds, chili powder, Malabar cinnamon leaves.

To make ghee you will need butter. It is heated, the foam is removed and spices are fried on it. In this case, a certain sequence must be observed. First, cumin is fried, then ginger, garlic, coriander and the mixture. It is necessary to constantly stir the contents, the cooking time should not exceed 1.5 minutes. Without following basic rules, the cook may end up with burnt spices.

Recipe

When it became clear what dal is, we’ll tell you about recipes for making creamy soup. As ingredients you need to take 200 g of beans of any kind, 2 liters of water, salt, 5-7 tbsp. spoons of ghee, spices. To prepare the dish you will need 3 tsp. turmeric, 2 tbsp. l. garam masala, 1 coconut. If this is not available, you can add coriander, cloves, cardamom, nutmeg, black pepper.

So, first you need to rinse the beans well and sort out any dirt. Then you should boil water and, adding salt, cook them for about 30 minutes. After completing this stage, you need to fry all the spices in ghee oil (observing the sequence). You also need to add vegetables and wait until the mass turns into a sauce. Add the resulting mixture to the beans and cook until tender with coconut milk. It is recommended to let the soup steep for five to ten minutes. Now it is obvious how to cook dal. Everything is very simple! Try to cook it, especially since it is not too difficult to find the necessary products. You will definitely like it.

Dal (Dhal) is a national Indian puree soup based on dal beans, coconut milk, vegetables and spices. Dal soup is the main “weapon” of Indian vegetarians against European meat-eaters and the central dish of Indian cuisine. It is very easy to prepare, extremely tasty, tolerant of the interchangeability of components and contains a lot of valuable protein, the absence of which in vegetarian food so often likes to reproach dissidents who eat unhealthy foods.

To begin with, let’s define the “area” of preparation of this interesting dish and eliminate the confusion of terms. The word Dal (Dahl, Daal or Dhal) refers to beans, of which there are more than 20 types, and a puree soup made from these beans. We're talking about soup, but don't forget about beans because you can make dal soup with different beans and get several different variations. This is what residents of different regions use in India - they take the type of beans that they like best or that is most accessible. Dal soup is prepared in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. This is almost 1 billion people, not counting the growing popularity of dal in Europe and America. So we are dealing with the most popular (after Chinese noodles) hot dish in the world.

Let's start with the principles. It is important to observe the following:
. Beans (lentils or peas) must be soaked before cooking.
. Before cooking, you should prepare Ghi from butter in advance.
. Spices must be fried in ghee before adding them to the beans.

Cooking lentils. For the best result and authenticity, it is better to take toor dal or pigeon peas, but you can also use red lentils - they do not soak for long and cook quickly. Green lentils or peas will do. Soaking - according to the variety. You don’t need to soak the red one at all, just cook it longer, soak the green one for several hours, and soak the peas for 3-4 hours. Some people may not know, but there is more protein in lentils than in meat, and legume protein is absorbed better than meat protein. For example, urad dal lentils contain twice as much protein as beef.

Attention! Be sure to wash any lentils and sort them for stones. It will be very unpleasant if it gets on your tooth.

Vegetables. Traditionally, dal uses carrots, coconut milk, onions and garlic. In recent centuries, tomatoes and chili peppers, which are not specific to India, have been added. The latter, by the way, in our conditions is still better to use in moderation, as a spice. Additionally, you can use cauliflower, and for greens - coriander. Plus let's add lemon to this set - it's absolutely appropriate.

Ghee oil. This is the most difficult thing. Usually recipes call for something like “clarified butter” or simply suggest using butter. In fact, ghee is made from butter by heating it in a saucepan and skimming off any excess foam. What will remain is clear oil that, when heated, will not burn, hiss, bubble or smoke. This is the Gi. It’s not difficult to prepare - take a little more butter than you planned and melt it in a saucepan (not the one you’ll use to fry the spices). Remove the foam with a spoon and pour the resulting oil into a wok or frying pan, where the spices will be fried.

Spices. The most important. They must be fried in ghee oil - this is the key moment of preparation. The spices are roasted and added to the dal at the end of cooking. At the same time, the roasting process itself involves the sequential addition of seasonings. It is important not to burn anything and to achieve maximum aroma and taste. The classic set of spices consists of:

Garam masala (Indian base spice mixture),
. Ginger,
. Asafoetida (resin with the smell of garlic),
. Cumin (cumin),
. Turmeric,
. Salt.

If you don’t have garam masala, you can make it yourself:
. Black and white pepper,
. Cardamom (black and green),
. curry leaves,
. Black cumin,
. Regular cumin
. star anise,
. Coriander,
. Nutmeg,
. Malabar cinnamon leaves or Malabar bay leaves.
You can prepare a slightly modified mixture:
. Fennel,
. Ginger powder,
. Dry garlic,
. Mustard seeds,
. Coriander,
. star anise,
. Chili powder,
. Cumin.

Ultimately, you can make your own garam masala mixture according to your mood using the available ingredients. In any case, the presence of five components is required:
. Turmeric,
. Coriander,
. Pepper,
. Ginger,
. Garlic,
Without which, no matter what you do, the taste and aroma of the dal will not come close to the original.

So, everything is ready, the lentils are washed and put on the fire to cook. There are options here: cook the lentils in vegetable broth or add vegetables along with the lentils. Both options are acceptable, but more often a broth is used in which the lentils are cooked until tender. Different varieties of lentils are cooked from 30 to 90 minutes. 5 minutes before cooking, heat the ghee and fry the spices, garlic and ginger in it.

There is a certain sequence in frying, try to stick to it. In a hot ghee, fry the cumin, then add the ginger, garlic and coriander, followed by the garam masala mixture. Stir continuously and very vigorously. In total, it takes from 40 seconds to one and a half minutes to fry the spices. If you stop stirring for even 10 seconds, the spices will burn and give an unpleasant taste and smell. If there is little ghee and a lot of spices, the spices can quickly absorb the oil and burn. Do not skimp on oil, let it be at least three times more than spices.

If you use tomatoes (and many modern Indian recipes use these vegetables), then you should add them to the spices and, without stopping stirring, intensively break up the vegetable structure and mix with spices and ghee. You should get a sauce that is poured into the almost finished lentils. At the same stage, coconut milk and asafoetida are added. Cooking continues until the lentils are easy to crumble between your fingers. To create puree, you can use a potato masher or blender. You only need to add salt at this stage. The dal is served in deep small bowls and garnished with coriander and flavored with a slice of lemon. For clarity, here is one of the many recipes for a typical dal.

Tamatar Tur-Dal

Ingredients:
200 g tur dal,
2 liters of water,
3 teaspoons salt,
3 teaspoons turmeric,
5-7 tbsp. spoons of ghee butter,
1 coconut
2 tbsp. spoons of garam masala mixture or:

1 teaspoon cumin,
1 teaspoon coriander,
2-3 cloves,
1 teaspoon cardamom,
½ teaspoon nutmeg,
½ teaspoon black pepper,
¼ teaspoon chili pepper,
1 teaspoon fennel,
3-4 laurel leaves.

Preparation:
Sort the tur dal and rinse. Boil water, add toor dal, salt (or add salt later) and cook for about 30 minutes, stirring. Melt butter or use ready-made ghee in a saucepan or small frying pan, fry the cumin, then ginger, garam masala or your mixture, add tomatoes and carrots. Bring it to a sauce and pour the resulting sauce into the pan with the toor dal. Add coconut milk. Continue cooking until tender (lentils should crumble easily between your fingers). Grind the toor dal with a masher or blender and let it brew for 5-10 minutes. Pour into deep bowls or plates. Garnish with herbs and a slice of lemon.

Like any ancient dish, dal has variations in its preparation. A fundamentally different method of adding ingredients allows you to minimize the use of utensils and is suitable for camping conditions, country or summer kitchens. The principle of adding ingredients is the same as in pilaf. That is, first you need to fry the spices, garlic, ginger and onions, then add tomatoes and carrots, add a little boiling water (so as not to burn), stir everything thoroughly until it becomes a sauce and add pre-soaked lentils. Next, you need to pour in boiling water, stir and cook until tender. Coconut milk is added last. You can garnish the dal already in the plate with cilantro and lemon.

The same variability applies to salt. Usually salted at the end, but it is permissible to add salt at intermediate stages with a mandatory taste test.

It is customary to serve dal soup with unleavened (unsalted) yeast-free chapati flatbreads or thin Armenian lavash. Chapatis are very easy to make yourself. It is enough to have a little flour.

Ingredients:
250 g flour,
150 warm water,
½ teaspoon salt,
2-3 tbsp. spoons of melted butter.

Preparation:
Mix flour and salt. Add water to the flour and knead the dough. Knead for 5-7 minutes, sprinkle the dough with water and leave in a warm place for 1-2 hours. Make sure the dough doesn't dry out. Form 15 small balls, roll them out so that you get flat cakes with a diameter of about 15 cm or slightly less. Heat a cast iron frying pan and bake the flatbreads without adding oil. Place the finished cake on a lit burner for a few seconds. The cake will swell - this is normal. 3-5 seconds of firing on each side will be enough. Brush the top side of each chapati with butter.

And a few more important details. In Indian cuisine, an abundance of spices in a dish is a necessity and performs several functions at once: it flavors, expands the range of flavors, helps digestion, prevents intestinal disorders, saturates the body with useful substances (vitamins, oils, micro- and macroelements). On average, about 1 tbsp is used per 1 kg of food. spoons of spices. You can balance the composition of spices towards aromatic and color ones, for example, add more turmeric and reduce the amount of pungent components, which are needed less in the cool Russian climate than in the hot tropical climate of India. It is very important not to forget about turmeric - it gives color and slightly softens the effect of hot spices. Cumin and coriander greatly influence the taste, try to use them too in any case.

Asafoetida stands apart. This is an unusual spice for us with a strong and not entirely pleasant smell. Its advantage is that, when mixed with other spices, it creates new shades of aromas that are very different from their natural smell. At the same time, asafoetida helps very well against gas formation when there is an excess of legumes in food (a serious problem for beginning vegetarians). It is recommended to add asafoetida to any legume dish. The amount is small - from “the tip of a knife” to a quarter of a teaspoon per 2 liters of water.

Dal (Dhal) is successfully prepared by both vegetarians and meat lovers. Dal is loved in India, Europe, America, Asia and Russia. This is healthy, bright, unusual and very easy to prepare food. Try making your own dal and don't forget the flatbreads!

Dal is one of the most popular dishes in traditional Indian cuisine. The roots of the preparation of this dish go back to ancient times, when vegetarianism and Ayurveda were at the peak of their popularity. The dish dal in different regions of India has its own name and recipe. For example, in the east of the country it is called dhal, but in the north it is called daal. The basis of this dish is always boiled pulses, which are considered an integral part of traditional Indian vegetarian cuisine.

Dal is a puree soup based on legumes with the addition of various spices, herbs and spices that make the dish unique. Even in poor families in India, dal is considered a mandatory dish on the table. To prepare it, I use a variety of types of legumes: lentils, chickpeas, pigeon peas, Urdu and so on. Depending on the region, various ingredients are added to the puree soup: coconut milk, tomatoes, garlic, curry, lemon juice, fried onions, zucchini and more.

This recipe is a classic type of dish, namely dal from, with a huge amount of spices, including panch poran.

To prepare we will need:

Red lentils - 1 cup
Tomatoes (preferably pink) - 3 pieces
Onions (preferably white) - 1 piece
Garlic - 2-3 cloves
Water - 3 glasses
Vegetable oil - 2 tablespoons
Lemon juice - 2 tablespoons
Bay leaf - 1 piece
Sesame (white Panch Poran or black) - 0.5 teaspoons
Fenugreek (Panch Poran) - 0.5 teaspoons
Mustard (seeds) - 0.5 teaspoons
Cumin (seeds) - 0.5 teaspoons
Turmeric - 1 teaspoon
Parsley for decoration

Gave the recipe

After we have prepared all the ingredients, let's start with the lentils. It must be rinsed thoroughly, it is better to do this several times until the water becomes clear. After this, add three glasses of water to the washed lentils and bring to a boil. When the water boils, reduce the heat, close the lid tightly and leave to cook for 10-12 minutes.

While our lentils are cooking, it's time to get started on the tomatoes. Wash the tomatoes well, wipe them and make cross-shaped cuts in each of them.

After this, place the tomatoes in a saucepan with boiling water and blanch for 2-3 minutes. After the tomatoes have “taken a bath,” they urgently need to be cooled and placed in cold water for another minute. It is better if it is a stream of cold water, then it will be much easier to remove the skin from the tomatoes. Place the blanched tomatoes on a cutting board and remove the skins.

Cut the “bald” tomatoes into small cubes and set them aside to cool for a while.

While the lentils are cooking and the tomatoes are cooling, it's time to start frying. It will not be quite standard, but with a set of various spices. To fry, coarsely chop the onion and garlic. It is better to take white onions and young garlic, then the taste of the dish will be more delicate.

Place the chopped onion in a frying pan, fry it a little, and then add chopped garlic to it.

After the onion is slightly fried, add 0.5 teaspoon of mustard seeds and mix well.

Turmeric is immediately added to the frying pan after the mustard, after which you need to reduce the heat and mix the frying well.

Next, you need to add 0.5 teaspoon of fenugreek and the same amount of cumin to the frying. Mix all ingredients well. If you are not a big fan of cumin, then you can do without it in this recipe.

By this time, the frying should acquire a golden color, and the onions and garlic should be well fried. If the onion is fried well enough, add sesame seeds to it. The choice of sesame depends on your aesthetic preferences; it can be either white or black, the taste of the dish depends on
this won't change.

Mix the fry well again and add it to the almost finished lentils. Let it simmer for another five minutes and add the tomatoes. After this, squeeze 2 teaspoons of lemon into the soup, add bay leaf and salt to taste.

Let the dish cook for another 5-7 minutes and remove from heat.

Decorate the finished dal with parsley or cilantro leaves. It is best served with flatbreads or rice cakes. The dish has an incredibly mild taste and amazing aroma. Bon appetit and be healthy!

Exotic dishes today are not a discovery for anyone. True, more often we eat them in restaurants, where we meet with friends and family on weekends, and at home we prefer to cook our usual food. Dal soup is a traditional Indian dish, the famous lentil soup. People on all continents enjoy cooking and eating it, and it has won special love among vegetarians. The soup is based only on vegetables, but at the same time it remains very nutritious and satisfying.

The recipe may seem overly complicated, but in fact this Indian soup is quite suitable for a home-cooked lunch.

Recipe

We will need:

Broth (chicken or meat) – 0.5 cups;

Orange lentils – 400 grams;

Cauliflower – 5–6 inflorescences;

Sweet bell pepper – 2 pieces;

Tomatoes – 3 pieces;

1 small carrot;

2 large onions;

Garlic – 5 cloves;

Vegetable oil – 2–3 tablespoons;

Salt to taste.

Seasonings:

To submit:

Number of servings – 6

Cooking time(excluding soaking lentils): 1.5 hours

Cooking lentils

You can choose any type of lentil. This recipe is for orange lentils: they cook faster than larger, darker types and, of course, add a special charm to the dish thanks to their color.

Like any recipe with legumes, before starting to cook this soup, you need to prepare the lentils, namely, soak them in water for 2-3 hours. If you're planning on making this Indian soup for, say, Sunday lunch, you can leave the lentils in the water overnight.
Before this, the grains must be sorted so that there are no stones or other debris in the dish, then rinse thoroughly in water until it is clean.
Place the prepared grains in a saucepan and add 2 liters of water. Once boiling, reduce the heat and leave the lentils for 20-30 minutes. During this time it will boil to the desired softness.

Preparing vegetables

Place the cauliflower florets in salted water and cook for 10–15 minutes. Cool the finished cabbage and then cut into small random pieces.
Wash the bell pepper, carefully remove the seeds and cut into half rings.
Finely chop two onions. And the smaller the better.
The carrots should also be chopped finely; you can even use a fine grater.
Cut the tomatoes into cubes.
It is better to chop the garlic larger - this will give the dish even more piquancy.

Spice dressing

A recipe for any Indian dish is impossible without spices. After all, India is famous for its passionate love for spices and seasonings, and the more of them, the better!

Pour the oil into the frying pan, and when it is hot, add the grated carrots. Fry for 2-3 minutes, then add, alternately stirring, half a teaspoon of cumin, turmeric and curry, mix everything thoroughly. After 3-4 minutes, the pan with aromatic frying can be removed from the heat.
Separately, fry finely chopped onion. Pour it into a hot frying pan, and 3-4 minutes later, when the pieces turn golden, add dried ginger and garlic to the onion.
Add the onion mixture to the dressing with spices, stir.

Mixing the ingredients

It was said above that Indian dal is popular among vegetarians. This recipe calls for meat broth, but you can replace it with vegetable broth or do without it altogether.

Add chopped peppers and tomatoes to the finished frying and leave under the closed lid for a couple of minutes. Turn down the heat.
Pour the cooked cauliflower into the vegetable mixture, then pour in half a glass of broth and simmer for about 2-3 minutes.
When the vegetables are thoroughly stewed and soft enough (check them with a knife or fork), they can be added to the pan with the lentils. Stir thoroughly, add black pepper and leave to simmer over low heat for a minute.
Remove the pan from the stove, close the lid tightly and leave for 5 minutes to brew.

The soup is ready!

Serve on the table

There are two ways to serve this dish.

In its original form. In this case, the pieces of vegetables remain intact, and the soup turns out to be quite thick and somewhat reminiscent of a stew. Therefore, restaurants often offer dal in this form as a side dish for meat or chicken.
In the form of the most delicate puree soup. This type of serving has its advantages: firstly, all the ingredients are mixed as thoroughly as possible, and the taste of the soup is simply amazing. Secondly, this is a great option to surprise guests. And thirdly, a child who is currently hostile to boiled vegetables will happily eat this soup.

Before serving, the dal is sprinkled with finely chopped herbs - parsley, cilantro and basil (if there is a mixture of them - even better!). Don’t be afraid to go overboard with seasonings and flavors – this is an Indian recipe, after all!

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