Читать книгу Miss Masala - Mallika Basu - Страница 13

Forget the horrors of boiled pulses. Dal is a piping-hot bowl of delicately spiced lentil curry. A must with every Indian meal. Soft and buttery, each dal has its own special cooking time and addition of spices known as tadka (also called baghar or chaunk).

My first lentil shopping trip was totally overwhelming. Lentils come in green, brown, yellow and red, some with husks and others skinless. The variety is quite bewildering, as is how to cook each type. I used my tried-and-tested, scientific method to master cooking them: buy one small bagful and perfect it after several failed attempts. The trick is to buy 500g (1lb 2oz) of a variety at a time and never, ever replace the lentils in one dal recipe for another. These are the types of lentil typically used in Indian dishes:

MASOOR – SPLIT RED LENTILS.

Widely available and super quick to cook.

A real winner in my books.

TOOR – SPLIT YELLOW LENTILS.

Also known as Arhar or Tuvar. These are shaped like flat discs, sometimes sold with an oil coating that you can just wash off. Popularly used in south Indian dals.

CHANNA – A SMALLER RELATIVE OF THE CHICKPEA.

It’s split in half to create a yellow lentil. It has a sweet, nutty flavour and is often cooked with sweet vegetables or sugar.

MOONG – A GREEN PULSE THAT CAN BE SPLIT AND DE-HUSKED TO GIVE AN OVAL-SHAPED YELLOW LENTIL.

The green stuff is a great stodgy winter choice, while the yellow version gives a lighter perennial option.