Dal tadka

On my recent cycling trip India, coming as it did after many meat orientated countries, was wonderful. Before India the premise had been that if it wasn't explicitly vegetarian then it probably had meat in it. With limited language abilities and strange scripts in use, opening up a menu and pointing at a random dish was somewhat problematic, and a damn shame to boot. In one place in Iran, as touristy as it gets there (i.e. not very), I got very lucky with an English menu and an English speaking waiter. I asked him if a dolmades "special vegetable" dish had meat in it. On being assured it did indeed have no meat imagine my surprise when the first forkful I took had a chewy animal bit in it. I spat it out and had a discussion with the waiter. "You said this had no meat!" "But it doesn't" "What's that then?", pointing at the ejected lump"Chicken" "But chicken is meat" "No it isn't". Right, we've got a linguistic problem here haven't we?

As I say, hitting India changed matters and pointing and ordering became a safe bet. Even so, some dishes I knew already, such as dal or dahl, which are legumes. Chana dal is yer chickpeas, masoor dal yer red lentils and there a host of others. Before I left home I'd had a good red lentil curry recipe ("slurry curry") anyway but I tried a dal tadka somewhere in Rajasthan and it was fantastic, both flavoursome and ideal for restocking the carbs and protein after a day of cycling, so I had to make it on my return.

Whilst there I got the impression it was basically a lentil dish made with cumin seeds with a fried dried chilli on top but when on my return to the UK I started looking into it there's more to it than that. Whilst you might think that tadka is like a Tarka but 'otter, it actually refers to cooking the spices and flavourings for a dish separately in ghee and then adding them into the main dish.

Some of the ingredients take a pre-show bow

Ingredients serves two hungry people.
Cooking time 20 minutes to 50 minutes.

• 125g yellow split peas (or red lentils, see below), about 1 mugs worth (still not got scales so this is a guess)
  
• Tsp turmeric
• Tsp ground coriander
• 30g butter (1/8 of a block)
  
• 2 tsp cumin seeds (jeera in Hindi)
• 1" fresh ginger, minced
  
• 1/2 green chilli de-seeded and chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1/2 tsp asafoetida (hing in Hindi)
• two or three tomatoes (depending on size), diced
• Juice of half a lime
  
• Handful of coriander leaves (cilantro in US English)

Cover your dal with about half an inch of water, add the turmeric and ground coriander, bring to the boil then reduce to a simmer. They need to cook until they're just going mushy. How long that takes depends on what dal you're using, about 45 minutes for yellow split peas, 15 or 20 minutes for red lentils. You may find you need to add a little water as you go.

When the dal still has five minutes or so to go heat up your butter (or ghee if you've got it) until it's foaming then add the cumin seeds and fry them for a couple of minutes. If you've got any mustard seeds hanging about you could replace one of tsps of cumin with them.

Next add the ginger, chilli (add more if you like it hot), garlic and hing if you've got it. Cook for another minute or so then add the toms and give it another couple of minutes.

Making the tadka

Add the tadka mix to your cooked dal, squeeze the lime in, stir and give it a minute or so on the heat.

Tad-ka!

Serve topped with the coriander and roti or basmati rice. Or any other rice will do, won't it?

Ingredient notes
I used the yellow splits for this recipe as I initially thought that that was I'd been having in India. That and I've got jar of them hanging around that need using up. However, on investigation it seems that what I had in India were actually yellow pigeon peas, or toor dal. Still got those split peas to use up though so I went with them anyway and they worked.

Lentils are great though, 26% protein, full of iron with red lentils being a native of the fertile crescent and as such one of mankind's first food crops. I'd recommend Jared Diamonds Guns, Germs and Steel at this point as a cracking good read with some interesting stuff on this sort of thing. Mix lentils with a grain such as rice and you've got a complete protein food (all essential amino acids there in the quantities you need).

Hing, which is easier to spell than asafoetida, is a very pungent spice that adds a kind of garlicky onion taste. It's also reputed to reduce flatulence from lentils which is why I'd recommend it for this dish. If you do get some be sure to store it in an airtight container so it doesn't contaminate other foods you store it with, it really does smell. If you don't have any and don't really fancy getting any either just omit it or try starting the tadka by frying up an onion for ten minutes. Fact lifted straight from wikipedia "In India, industrial cooking gas sold in metal containers is often scented with asafoetida. The scented gas has a distinctive strong sulphurous, garlic like odour which helps to detect any possible leakage of gas quickly". Cool.

When it comes to the chilli, this recipe is underpowered as Helen doesn't like spice. I do so I just sliced up the rest of the chilli and put it over the top of mine. Also, if you have any reasonable sized dried chillies you could try cutting it in half and quickly frying it (for a minute?) separately then putting it on the top of each prepared dish.