In Search of the Perfect Dal

Although I was certainly aware of dal by the time I started cooking, I did not really understand it. At least not how to prepare it. In my mind, they were just lentils, right? I didn’t know about the different varieties or more significantly, how I should cook each type. My initial experience had not been positive; a bag of brown supermarket lentils used to fortify rice in Khitchree. The lentils did not cook completely and the spice mix seemed off to me. Bear in mind, that at that time, I had no idea what the correct blend of spices should have been. Furthermore, I doubt that the supermarket lentils were the “masur or moong” dal that the recipe asked for. Still…

One of my next attempts to make dal was a few years later when I found a recipe for moong dal in one of my cookbooks. This time, I purchased whole dried moong beans from an Indian grocery shop. I recall that yogurt was part of the recipe — which seems a bit odd to me today. Regardless, success remained elusive; in fact I had a disaster on my hands. With no idea how to cook the whole moong beans and the strong likelihood that I had skipped soaking them prior to cooking, the dal was again far from tender. And the yogurt-based gravy was just…weird! Consequently, my attitude towards dal was poisoned for quite awhile.

But some of this is my own fault. Most cookbooks discuss the multiple varieties of pulses or legumes (lentils, beans and peas) available in India and how they should be prepared. I am reasonably sure that I glossed over these sections. And if I did read them, it does not appear that I applied what I learned to my cooking.

An important part of the conversation about dal centers around the differences between whole pulses and split dal. The former take longer to cook, and benefit from soaking in water before cooking. Some, such as moong and urd have a skin, which adds to their cooking time. This skin is often removed when the beans are split; whole green moong beans becomes yellow in their split and skinned form. Most books offer basic instructions for washing and soaking dal, and why it is important to do so. Not to mention the author’s preferred method for cooking them.

After finally reading from a few books, I determined that I had used the olive-green whole dried moong beans for that recipe, when I should have chosen the split and skinned variety. Because I did not annotate my cookbooks, as my parents had, I now am unable to find that recipe to try it again with the correct ingredients.

Today, I can laugh at my first attempts at cooking dal, because I make it all the time and it generally comes out pretty well. But truth be told, I struggled for a long time to find the ideal recipe for a basic tarka dal. Back in college, I did not have much to compare it to. I didn’t quite consider the Mulligatawny soup from Oh Calcutta to be dal, and I had not yet revisited India Restaurant in Davis where a thicker dal appeared as a side dish with your dinner. So for my next attempt, instead of trying to recreate one of the restaurant’s recipes, I worked mostly from the book (if you can believe that).

From Madhur Jaffrey’s An Invitation to Indian Cooking, I picked the first recipe in the dals section, which was simply called Lentils. The introduction states: “This is a recipe for the dry lentils as bought in an American Supermarket.” Perfect. It called for two cups of lentils. And once again, I bought a bag of lentils from the nearby Star Market. The recipe is pretty basic, but differs by adding some flavoring ingredients to the pot while cooking the lentils. Ginger, garlic, cinnamon stick, bay leaf all were added. At the time, I did not think that water was the best liquid to cook lentils in. I mean, no taste, right? OK, no problem. I have a few cans of chicken stock here that should do the trick. In the end, I am not sure if I made the tarka (asafoetida and cumin seeds) but the Lentils recipe had basically become a spicy chicken lentil soup.

Over time I managed to learn how to properly cook dal, but not before allowing a few pots to boil over. By trial and error, I figured out the right cooking times for for masoor and tur dal and they started to come out better, although still a bit al dente. I read a few articles about the pros and cons of adding salt to the soaking or cooking water, but did not try either for quite some time, unconvinced of the potential benefits. Eventually I relented, and added some salt when cooking a combination of moong and tur dal. And to my amazement, it worked. The dal cooked completely, and broke down without mashing. The whole pulses, however, were still problematic. Even with soaking and longer cook times they never seemed to completely soften.

I had never owned, or considered using a pressure cooker, even though they are often enthusiastically embraced or at least mentioned in most dal recipes. However, faced with other kitchen challenges, in 2017, I bought an Instant Pot. I bought a large one, which I almost immediately regretted since I was cooking for myself. However, once I got the hang of it, I started to suspect that it might have uses beyond pressure cooking. Not only did I figure out how to get chickpeas to thoroughly cook, but to cook in far less time than the typical boil and simmer method I had previously employed. I also found it made rice really well and steaming vegetables or koftas was fast and easy. And can I talk about paneer? No, I will leave that for another day…

Around the same time I acquired the Instant Pot, I glanced back at Jaffrey’s Lentils recipe again, and decided that it might be worth revisiting in my quest for the perfect tarka dal. Sans chicken stock. Incorporating a few of her ideas into my working recipe improved the dish immensely and along with a few other adjustments, I finally arrived at a really good tarka dal recipe. I like it anyhow.