Her daughter, obviously, loves to take on more than she can chew sometimes (literally!) and takes pleasure in experimenting on never-before-cooked recipes especially when she has guests. I most often mess up on my most tried and tested recipes when I have guests (is it the pressure or is it the expected behaviour, I can never tell). Anyway, dal makhani has been on the back of my head forever and I recently got a bag of whole black lentils (whole black urad dal) and I decided to try it on an evening we had a young North Indian couple. Brave, aren’t I? 😉 This is a milder version of the dish as I was serving it with spiced up vegetable pulao. I also avoided the cream that is usually an essential ingredient for this recipe.

Ingredients: 1/2 cup whole ural dal (black lentils), soaked overnight 4 tbsp rajma (red kidney beans), soaked overnight with the dal 1 onion, chopped fine 1 tomato, chopped fine 2-3 cloves of garlic, chopped 1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste 1/2 tsp cumin seeds (jeera) 1 tsp garam masala 1/2 tsp red chilly powder 2 dried red chillies 2 tbsp milk 1 tbsp butter 1 tbsp oil Salt How to make Dal Makhani:

  1. Heat oil in a pressure cooker and saute onions till transparent. Add salt, chilly powder and the ginger-garlic pasted and fry for a minute.
  2. Next, add the chopped tomatoes and cook for a few minutes so that the mixture combines well together. Add the lentils and beans, and enough water to just cover them. Pressure cook for 3-4 whistles. Remove from fire and set aside.
  3. Once the pressure leaves the cooker, keep it on a low fire. Add the milk and bring to boil. Keep it on sim and let it boil while preparing to temper it.
  4. Heat the butter and oil in a pan and throw in the cumin seeds. Once they start spluttering, add the chopped garlic and the red chillies each torn into 3 pieces. Fry until the garlic starts browning and smelling lovely.
  5. Remove the dal from fire and add the tempered butter-oil directly to it. Follow immediately with garam masala and mix well. Adjust salt. Serve with warm rotis, naan or an easy veg pulao.