Everyday Spiced Dal (Vegan & Pressure Cooker)
POV: This is South Asian comfort food. It’s a dish to have on weekly rotation — perfect for that mid-week meal, paired with freshly cooked rice. There are a million variations of this recipe, mine is inspired by the famous Aarti Sequira, with a few tweaks. It’s vegan and simple.
Equipment
- 1 A pressure cooker
- 1 Stand mixer
Ingredients
Aromatics
- 1 onion
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1 piece ginger 1cm, roughly the size of your thumb
For the tempering oil
- 1/2 tsp cumin powder
- 1/2 tsp coriander powder
- Generous tsp turmeric powder
- Generous tsp paprika or bafaat powder
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil sunflower or peanut (60 ml)
Pantry Items
- 1 tin canned tomato 400g
- two small or one large dried chili
- 1 cup dal red lentils 240 g
Instructions
Soak the Lentils
- To make the lentils, add them to a bowl, cover with water and let soak for a minimum of 30 minutes and a maximum of one day. If you have some lentils soaking and forgotten to cook them, put them in the fridge and cook them at the next possible time. Once soaked, drain the water and wash the lentils until the water runs clear. Strain the water and set the soaked lentils aside.
Pressure Cooker
- Peel the onion and garlic and wash the ginger. Add these ingredients to your stand mixer with enough water to cover the onion. Blend on the highest setting so that you get a soupy consistency. Now add this mixture to the pressure cooker.
- Also add the strained lentils the pressure cooker. Do not add salt yet as this lengthens the cooking time of the lentils.
- Finally add the tin of canned tomatoes to the pressure cooker and let cook under pressure for at least 15 minutes. Once you release the pressure your lentils should be almost translucent and almost falling apart.
- Whisk the lentils, releasing the natural starch, and mash some of them so the mixture becomes thick-ish. Now add salt, to taste.
For the tempering oil (bagaar)
- For the tempering oil (bagaar), in a small bowl, combine the spice powders (cumin, paprika, turmeric, coriander). Mix these spices so you have a uniform spice powder. Have them ready because the next step requires you to move fast!
- In a small skillet, over a medium-high flame, warm 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil. Once the oil is shimmering, add the spices. They should sizzle and bubble a little: that’s the blooming of the spices and it’s exactly what you want. Make sure all the spices come into contact with the oil and stir with a ladle to make sure there are no pockets of dry spices. Don’t let them burn, this process is very quick! The mixture should “bloom” for about 30 seconds, no more. Immediately take the skillet from the heat. If you’re using cast iron, immediately pour the spices into the open pressure cooker with the lentils. The cast iron pan retains the heat which means even if you take the skillet off the heat the spices will continue to fry until you transfer them to another dish. If you’re using a non-stick pan you have a little more time to transfer the spices to the pressure cooked lentils.
- Pour the oil mixture into the lentils, stand back so that you don’t get hurt when the spices splutter as they come into contact with the lentils. Stir to combine. Transfer the lentils to a serving dish and serve with rice or breads.
Notes
If you have access to ripe and fresh tomatoes, use fresh tomatoes instead of canned ones. If you want to optimize for flavor, use fresh ripe tomatoes. These will give you a lovely fresh taste that canned tomatoes can’t give you.
If you are looking for a more affordable recipe use canned tomatoes instead of fresh ones. I also recommend using canned tomatoes if fresh ones aren’t in season I would highly recommend using canned tomatoes. This is cheaper and gives you a more reliable taste profile in comparison to using fresh tomatoes when they are not in season.
Stick to canned tomatoes rather than tomato concentrate. Tomato concentrate is so strong in taste that it overpowers the lentils. This really skews the taste profile of the dish – it feels like you’re eating a tomato sauce rather than a lentil dish. It’s still edible just a completely different dish.