Recipe - Thakur Dhall

I thought id finish the second recipe , Takra dhall tonight – cause I think I am getting lazy at blogging again either that or I am just really really tired. Anyways the dish is an Indian dish obviously though im not sure which region it originates from. This is a delicious dhall (lentil) recipe handed to me by a sweet family friend from India. She is a great cook without a doubt and wasn’t stingy about sharing her family recipes. Anyways, this dish can be considered soup like, stew like. It’s best not too thick and yummy eaten with rice and my grandmother’s fried beef, eaten with just rice, or on it sown. I like to crumble some papadum (Indian crackers) and throw it in the mix either with or without rice and of course I think you can it with rice – it’s a great accompaniment for almost everything it seems.

the papadum

dhall with rice

This is one of those really simple recipes and I mean really simple with a long cooking time – because you have to wait for the dhall to cook. I for some reason don’t like to pre soak the lentils – my mom on the other hand she said it cuts down the cooking time – it probably does but I feel that the texture of the dhall is a little different when you soak it – just doesn’t work for me.

Anyways, for this dish I use the yellow lentils or thoor dhall. I think I blogged about this previously but here is the picture of the dhall that I use for this dish .These can be found at most Asian shops – this is the flat yellow dhall – don’t confuse it with the thicker version. I made that mistake, and the dish didn’t come out quite right.

Takra Dhall in English means spicy lentils hence the use of lots of chillies in it ..

Takra Dhall .

Ingredients:-

2- 4 hands full of yellow lentil or thoor dhall

1 tbsp ginger & garlic paste

1 tsp turmeric powder

2-3 green chilies chopped

1 tbsp mustard seeds

1 tbsp cumin seeds

10 pcs dried chilies or more if you like it hot (snip into small pieces)

2 medium sized onions sliced thinly

2 medium sized tomatoes chopped

Salt to taste

Vegetable oil

Directions:

1. Fill a medium sized pot half way through then add the lentils, diced green chilies, ginger garlic paste & turmeric. Cook it until the lentils are done.
   
2. In a frying pan, heat the oil and crackle mustard & cumin seeds. Add the dried chilies followed by onion fry until the onions are transparent then add in the tomatoes and keep frying until the tomatoes and soft.
   
3. Lower the heat from the boiling dhall and add the above friend ingredients. Add a little water. Add salt and let it simmer so that the flavors blend in this usually takes about 5 mins.


4. You don’t want a watery consistency. The final product will have some broken up lentil texture to it and it will look something like this ..
   

So the next time you’re in the mood for some Indian cookin, maybe you could give this very simple recipe a try I guarantee you wont regret it! Happy trying world!