Rhea's Parsi Masala Dal

We were over at our friend Rhea's place for dinner and stay-over some weekends ago. She had taken a lot of effort to prepare an all-vegetarian spread covering her entire table, but for me the star of the dinner was a dal, which i could simply not get enough of. It had such a depth of flavour, someth

Prep Time 20

Cook Time 20

Total Time 40

Course Main Course

Cuisine Indian

Servings 4 serving

Ingredients

1/2 cup masoor dal (skinned, split pink coloured lentils)
1/2 cup tur dal
1 tbsp sunflower oil ghee or
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
2 sprigs curry leaves fresh
1 onion medium , very finely chopped
1 tsp Masala Mangal Dhansak
1 tsp salt or to taste
coriander lots of finely chopped

Instructions

Wash the dals well and pressure cook them with 2- cups water till soft. Mash well with the back of a rounded ladle till smoothly pureed.
In a wok, heat the oil / ghee. Temper with cumin seeds, then add in the curry leaves, ginger garlic paste. Stir for a minute or so on low heat.
Add the onions and saute till golden brown. Stir in the dhansak masala with some water after which the mashed dal goes in.
Adjust the consistency with some water, if this is very thick. Season with salt and let it simmer for 2-3 minutes. Garnish with chopped coriander.

Notes

Notes: We've had this with rice, with rotis, with pulao and it tastes fantastic with everything. Trust me, it is totally worth it going through the trouble to find this masala in your spice aisle. Dal will never taste the same again :)

BTW, Rhea has her own food blog and you can drop by to find some authentic Bengali recipes, some Parsi recipes and her own creative stuff...She has also blogged about this dal as Parsi Masala Dal, with a slightly different version. My version is what she rattled out to me as we were stuffing the delicious dinner at her place the other night.

Here's a recipe for Veg Parsi Dhansak:

Recipe for Parsi Kachumber salad that goes with the Dhansak and Brown Rice