Yellow Split Pea Dal

Submitted by kimkej

""Dal" in Indian cooking refers to porridge like dishes made from dried legumes, usually split peas or lentils. Dal is often served in a thinned state as a soup, but equally often it will be a thick, hearty side dish. This is a thick dal, comprehensive and highly spiced enough to be the focus of a meal. From one of the Moosewood cookbooks. Prep time includes 2 hours for cooking dried split peas. Serve with rice and raita."

 

• Ready In: 2hrs 20mins
• Ingredients: 11
• Serves: 4

ingredients

• 1 cup dried yellow split peas
• 5 cups water (plus 1/2 cup more later)
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 3 -5 garlic cloves
• 3⁄4 teaspoon cumin seed
• 3⁄4 teaspoon mustard seeds
• 1⁄2 teaspoon turmeric
• 1⁄2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1⁄4 teaspoon salt (or more to taste)
• black pepper
• crushed red pepper flakes

directions

1. Place split peas in a saucepan with 5 cups of water.
2. Cover and bring to boil.
3. Lower heat and simmer very slowly, partially covered until soft (2-2/12 hours) Melt butter in large skillet.
4. Add crushed garlic, cumin, mustard seeds, turmeric, and cinnamon.
5. Cook, stirring, over medium heat for 3 minutes.
6. Add cooked peas and stir until everything is well mixed.
7. Keep stirring and cooking as you gradually add an additional 1/2 cup water.
8. You want a creamy consistency but not soup.
9. Add salt, black and red peppers.
10. Cook and stir another 5 minutes over low heat.
11. Serve hot.

Reviews

[Charishma_Ramchandani]

I made this as part of our dinner last night. I did use oil instead of butter. This dal was really lacking in taste. I added 1/2 a tsp. of black pepper, 1 whole tsp.(heaped) of red chilli powder, 1 more tsp. of salt and the juice of 1 lemon. It was much better then. I served it with steaming hot white rice topped with a dollop of low-fat plain yoghurt.

 

[AJeyaraja]

Basic recipe, but lacked flavor. Added teaspoon each of pure red chili powder, coriander powder, cumin powder, and sprinkled some garam masala on top (omitted cinnamon). Added some onion with the mustard/cumin seeds. Much more salt neededthan 1/4 teaspoon. At least 1 teaspoon of salt. Also, I only had whole yellow split peas. I didn't soak them, but put them in the pressure cooker. It took about a half hour on high to get them to cook.

 

[aliyas mommy]

It is a wonderful dish. My husband is from Pakistan and completely loved it. I made it fairly thick and we ate it with paratha, which is an oily flat bread. Delicious!!

 

[MargoH]

Yummy, inexpensive and easy to prepare. We also found we needed to add a little more salt than the recipe calls for, so I'd suggest salting to taste. :)

 

[mapsmay]

Fantastic is an understatement! This was amazing especially considering that I really thought I'd screwed it up. I wanted to double it, so used 2 cups peas and 10 cups water and added a little onion powder to the water. Well about 2 hours later, I kind of had forgotten about it, and the peas were cooked to mush and there seemed to be WAY too much water. I almost scrapped the project but decided to proceed. I doubled the spices (since I'd doubled the peas)used a bit of olive oil (no butter) and used jarred crushed garlic (about 1 TBS), cumin powder (about 1.5 tsp) and used garlic salt instead of regular. I omitted the pepper and red pepper flaked but added a bit of red chili pepper. I added the very watery pea mixture back to the spices and prayed! I didn't need to add any additional water, just let it sit for a bit after mixing the peas in... it thickened up perfectly and had the best tasted and texture. I did a little more garlic salt in the end and sprinkled some garam masala too. Served on brown rice. This is mild (not spicy like some Indian dishes) but we LOVED it. My 3 year old did too.