There is nothing like cooking your own meal. Dal and rice makes for a simple, wholesome meal. Specially when you have nothing to do, or want to change your mood, cooking is a great stress-buster. The process-oriented approach always works wonders for me. I revel in the pungent smells of chillies, garlic, ginger, as I chop them. Tomatoes have to be ducked in just at the right time to save the tadka from burning up. As I array the green chillies, the red tomatoes, purplish-white onions and the gay green coriander the cutting board is a virtual palette of colour. As I marshal each ingredient and send it out into the battlefield assessing its strengths, I know there is a work of art in the making.
It is appropriate to begin cooking dal and rice for lunch at midday. By the time you are done you are hungry enough to devour it. Dal and rice is a complete meal. A little miscut (Goan mango pickle) on the side would go nicely. When we were young I used to pester mum for a piece of brown jaggery to go with it too. Somehow the sweet and spicy taste has come with me from Gujarat where I was born. The dal thickens after heating. So after it is served at noon, it makes for a tasty side dish for dinner with a vegetable. I had the dal in the pic above for lunch, dinner as well as breakfast the next day.
Rice
Take one cup of rice and strain it three times in a sieve. Wash it to rid it of the husk and dirt. Transfer the rice into a cooking vessel (shown above). Now take three cups (in a 1:3 ratio) of drinking water and pour it over the washed rice. Add salt to taste. Keep it on sim flame. Don't cover it. Allow it to cook till you can see 'holes' in the rice. This should take about 15 minutes. Switch off the gas. Put a cover over the rice. Wait for 15 minutes, then serve.
Dal
INGREDIENTS
Dal (Masur) - 1 cup
Cummin / Jeera - 1/2 tsp
Mustard / Rye - 1/2 tsp
Red chillies - 2 broken
Asafoetida / Hing - 2 pinches
Salt - 3 pinches
Oil - 1 and 1/2 tablespoon
Ginger - 1/2 inch
Garlic - 8 clean pods
Onion - 1 medium sized
Chillies green - 1 or 2
Tomato - 1 medium sized
Chilli powder (red) 1/2 tsp
Turmeric / Haldi 1/2 tspGaram masala 1/4 tsp
Kasuri methi 1/2 tsp
Butter 1/2 tsp
Coriander green - 4 sprigs
METHOD
Wash the dal first in a sieve and let the chaff drain out. Keep it in a vessel to soak and soften for 15 mins. Drain the water. Put about 3 cups of drinking water with the dal and put it into the pressure cooker for about 30 minutes on sim flame. After that switch the flame off and lift nozzle. When the tadka is ready open the cooker and add more water if necessary and salt.
Assemble all the ingredients when you first keep the dal to soak. Put oil in a kadai (as shown above). Put the onions, masalas and chillies in it on simmer flame. Stir. Add salt. Add tomatos after chopping finely. Add kasuri methi, and butter. Cover and allow to heat. Add dal to tadka. Keep stirring. Add coriander. Put off flame. Allow to heat with closed lid for 5 mins. Serve hot with pickle (korum - sliver of raw green mango) and a green salad of raw tomatoes, onions and green chillies.
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Made under the supervision of Queenie Mendonca. Pic of dal and rice taken by Brian Mendonca on 10th April 2020. Original recipe re-imagined, courtesy indianhealthyrecipes(dot)com Updated 26 May 2020.
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