benazir's blog

Dal Baht

This is an archive post that has to deal with dal. As usual dal is a very simple dish and this one also takes a few ingredients. This is popular with people that either has or doesn’t have a whole lot of money and yet it is so comforting and nurishing.

Take 1 cup of masoor ki dal and add it to a bowl with a tiny pinch of baking soda and fill it up with water so it can cover the dal meaning lentils. Let it sit for 1 hour to soak. Rinse the dal until the water is clear. Put it back in the bowl and set this aside.

In a mortar and pestle add 1 whole round red chili or long red chili. You can even add 1 Kashmiri chili instead, 1 pinch each of coriander seeds and black peppercorns, 1 small piece of cinnamon stick, 1 green cardamom and grind them until it becomes a coarse powder then set aside.

Put the instant pot or other multi functional cooker you may have on saute on high for 10 minutes. After it it says it is hot then add 1 oz of either corn oil, peanut oil, vegetable oil or canola oil. Add either 1 onion or shallot cut in half moon slices you may also add 5 green onions chopped. Fry these until they are golden brown.

Now add your freshly made masala, 1 pinch of pink salt and the rinsed dal that was soaking earlier. Add 1 pinch of cilantro, 1 quart or 1 liter of water. Cover with pressure cook lid of your multi functional cooker. If your cooker is still on saute function you will have to press cancel to turn off your cooker and then tap pressure cook and make sure it is on high for 15 minutes. You can do this by toggling the pressure cook button from low to high and it should be on high. Make sure your condensation collector is on in the back before even starting to cook. Check the lid to make sure it is on the sealing position.

After it is done cooking then place your steam deverter on the vent and let release naturally or just tap the quick release button. When the pressure is gone then you can carefully open the cooker to see if the dal is done. If not then you can repeat for another 15 minutes. When you open it again and it is ready then you can eat it with either millet, buckwheat groats or rice.

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