Saturday, March 8, 2008

Soothing Supper - Indian Lentils


In this house, we are a big fan of Indian food and this recipe comes from our most-used books "India with Passion: Modern Regional Home Food" by Manju Malhi. Most of the Indian food that the Irish palate is familiar with is Punjabi (from Northern India). However this book is divided into North, South, East and West with a description of the cuisine of the region at the beginning of each chapter.

Dal Makhani (buttered spiced black lentils) is one of our favourites. On cold nights like these a bowl of warming lentils is just perfect. The quantities here are for 2-3 as a main, 4-6 as a side dish. The Doc made this tonight and played around with the published method slightly - we were lucky enough to live for a few weeks with a family in New Delhi, and one of our Indian friends made something similar then and suggested frying the dry lentils briefly before adding the water (similar I would think to frying the rice for a minute before adding the liquid when making a risotto?).


Dal Makhan
i (literally "Buttered Lentils" adapted from "India with Passion" by Manju Malhi)
  • 1 tsp coriander
  • 1 tsp cumin
  • 115g black lentils
  • 70g butter
  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 2 green chillis, de-seeded and chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp tumeric
  • 1/4 tsp chilli powder
  • small tin kidney beans
  • 1 tsp grated ginger root
  • 1/4 tsp garam masala
  • 2 tsbp single cream (or yoghurt)
  • coriander leaves as garnish
Method:
  1. dry fry coriander, cumin and lentils for 1 min
  2. add 600ml water and simmer until lentils are tender (about 30 mins)
  3. melt butter in frying pan and add onion, chillis and garlic
  4. once onion starts to brown add lentils and all remaining ingredients down to the garam masala
  5. simmer until thickened, about 10 mins
  6. stir in cream and top with coriander

6 comments:

EducatedNobody said...

115g black lentils? don't you think thats a bit much? No I am just kidding but its fun to play food snob!

Rachel@fairycakeheaven said...

YUM!!! LOVE LOVE LOVE Indian food myself, dying to buy Simple Indian by Atul Kocchar for ages, been wathing Indian Food Made Easy on UKTV Food in the last few weeks aswell. Definitely making this!!!

Kate said...

I saw Atul Kochhar on Saturday Kitchen before Christmas and he mentioned that he was to open a restaurant in Dundrum. It was supposed to open in March but I've heard nothing about it since (every time I'm there I go out and wander down the main street too in case it is to open there!).

Also in last month's Observer Food Magazine he had a series of recipes as well a blind test of supermarket Indian food.
It's good to know what brands of mango chutney, naan etc. that someone like him would recommend.

aforkfulofspaghetti said...

Oooooh, how fab! We don't see black lentils used much - so I'm glad you've given them an airing. I ate bowls and bowls of the stuff when I was in India last year - but didn't even think of hunting down a recipe... D'uh. So thank you!

Rachel@fairycakeheaven said...

Going to make this over the weekend, sounds like something I can take to work aswell which is great, also found a gorgeous recipe for Kheer here

http://kitchenpantry.blogspot.com/2008/03/kheer-indian-rice-pudding.html

which would be gorgeous with this aswell, am all about the Indian food!!!

Anonymous said...

I made a semi-new year's resolution to cook more Indian recipes this year - this looks like a yummy way in to doing that :-)