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Dal Makhani

Nicked this one from Atul Kochhar - you can watch him on YouTube

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Here's how I do it, its pretty much the same but I wanted to add some tips. 

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Ingredients in order of appearance: -

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  • 1 cup of black urid daal

  • 1/4 cup kidney beans ( optional ) 

  • Thumb of ginger ( optional ) 

  • 4-5 chillies

  • 1 teaspoon of salt

  • 1 teaspoon of cumin seeds ( optional ) 

  • 1 finely chopped onion 

  • 1 teaspoon of coriander powder

  • 1/2 teaspoon of chilli powder

  • 1/2 can of chopped tomatoes

  • around 50g of butter

  • 100ml of cream ( optional ) 

  • 1 teaspoon of garam masala

  • 1/2 teaspoon of fenugreek ( optional ) 

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Urid daal has many names so this could be the first point of confusion. It's also called urad daal. Our local supermarkets labels it as a bean rather than a lentil, which seems wrong but hey. It can also be called black gram or black lentil. Anyway, its black on the outside, white on the inside and its kinda fat and a slightly elongated round shape. Here are some useful pictures courtesy of Vegan Richa. Clear as mud, let's move on. 

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I would recommend soaking the daal for up to 24 hours or at least over night. If you're soaking for a day or so change the water a couple of times. When you're ready to use it, rinse it out using sieve. ( If you soak it and forget about it and it starts fermenting, chuck it and start again ). 

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The proper recipe says to add some kidney beans as well. Generally people don't have dried kidney beans that come in packets but you might have canned kidney beans which don't need soaking, that's fine too. You'll need to add the canned kidney beans later in the recipe as they're already soft so I'll mention that in the write up below. 

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So the soak - soak the daal with the kidney beans if using a dried kidney beans, otherwise soak the daal on its own. 

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Unless you're going for a Michellin star, don't worry if you don't have all the spices, curries are very forgiving and the important thing is the flavour of the main ingredient, the daal in this case. As you can see I have said some of the ingredients are optional.

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Urid Beans.png

OK, so you've soaked your daal ( and optionally the dried kidney beans ) at least over night and are ready to cook. 

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You're going to need a pressure cooker ideally, if not, you're going to need to boil the daal for a few hours. 

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So rinse your daal and add to the pressure cooker or normal pot, cover in around 1 inch of cold water. Add 1 teaspoon of salt and 4-5 sliced chillies. If you have some ginger throw in some big chunks, I normally take it out afterwards, that's way I don't chop it. 

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​Heat on high until boiling and then simmer. If using a pressure cooker you need around 25 minutes. If using normal pot, you need to cover and simmer for 2 hours. Once the time is up, check the lentils, they should be soft, if not, leave for longer. 

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When the daal is softened, take out the ginger and leave while we get on with the sauce. 

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Heat some ghee or oil in another pot on medium heat. Doesn't matter which oil you use. When the oil is getting hot add the cumin seeds if using. If not just chuck in the chopped onion.

 

Once the onions start to soften and turn translucent add 1 teaspoon of coriander and 1/2 teaspoon of chilli power. If you didn't use cumin seeds, add 1 teaspoon of cumin powder now. 

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Fry for like a minute and then add the 1/2 can of chopped tomatoes. 

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Let that cook on medium, stirring occasionally, for around 10 minutes or until it starts drying or the oil starts separating.

 

Now add the daal carefully with all the water from the other pot into this one. Or the other way around, whatever works best in terms of pot size.

 

The daal should be a little watery at this stage because we're going to lid and simmer on low for 30 minutes.

 

Keep checking that it isn't drying out or sticking to the bottom, if it's getting too dry, add water. Every one likes their daal done to different consistency so just do what works for you as long as its not sticking to the pot and not too watery. 

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After around 30 minutes, add 50g of butter, around 100ml of cream if using and mix in.

 

Now throw in 1 teaspoon of garam masala. You can get fenugreek in powder, dried leaves or fresh leaves. Either is fine. I prefer the powder unless I have some frozen leave handy. Throw in a 1/2 teaspoon of the powder or dried leaves or a handful of fresh leaves if you have them. 

 

Turn the heat off and let the daal sit for around 20 minutes. 

 

Enjoy your daal makhani :)

 

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