Splitting the perfect pea

(The Hindu Magazine, October 9, 2011)

It had been cooking for an hour already. But when I checked, it still was not done. If it had not been a strangely bad day, I would have cottoned on; but then, if it had not been a strangely bad day, I would not have done it. My mistake was one that many aspiring cooks make and it was perfectly understandable, except that I was not an aspiring cook and I could not understand how I had done it. I was making dal for dinner. And instead of the tur or arhar dal that was on my menu, I was boiling all heck out of chana dal and getting nowhere and not too fast either. It became especially funny, since just a couple of weeks earlier I had been giggling at the exact same mistake a friend of mine had made…But the story ended well enough. The semi-cooked dal was incorporated into a kind of adai, a multigrain dosai/pancake that perhaps no good Keralite would admit into their food habits, but that was eventually delicious.

Dal, or split pulses of various kinds, is a mainstay dish in almost every part of India and much of South Asia. It takes on many avatars, eaten with rice or roti, spiced or plain, with vegetables or meat, and can be the ideal diet food as well as a calorific indulgence. Today you don’t even have to bother to make it in your own kitchen (perhaps getting mixed up between one dal and the other, like so many of us are still embarrassed about) – you can buy cans of the famous Dal Bukhara originally from the well-known Delhi hotel, you can pick up cans of lentil soup at the imported goods store in the mall, you can find ready-to-heat-and eat packages from brands best known for ketchup, you could even just call the local eatery, be it a high-end restaurant or the dhaba at the corner, and collect a pot of steaming hot goodness ladled out from a huge vat that has probably been simmering for hours.

It all begins with pulses, as they are called, or lentils or dried beans that are hulled and then split. These are processed in various ways and then stored, either in oil (which keeps longer but also needs to cook longer) or not. It is an essential part of almost any diet, even at today’s unbelievably high prices, since it provides most of the protein required in a normal diet – in fact, dal is about 25-30 percent protein in its own makeup. Most commonly used are tur (which I actually wanted), chana (which I inadvertently used), moong (from the well known mung or moong bean), urad and masoor dal, with the less salubrious kesar dal listed among others. A number of beans and peas too are staples, from the familiar rajma, chana and cowpeas (blackeyed beans or lobia) to the Mussyang or melange of pulses comon in the hilly regions of Nepal, to the less seen in India varieties like lima beans, fava beans, yellow split peas (favoured by the Indian community in Guyana and Trinidad) vetch and horse lentil.

Dal is not difficult to make, even for the novice, once the kind of dal being used is determined. Quickest to cook is moong dal, while the beans need more intense pressure cooking to soften and absorb flavour; if pre-soaked in water, cooking time can be reduced appreciably. The whole lentil, called sabut dal, contains more dietary fibre and is preferred in sub-continental cuisine, though the split pulse, or dhuli dal, is easier to handle, especially in a modern and hurried kitchen. Once cooked, the dal is flavoured in a variety of ways, from the addition of a simple tadka to a more elaborate preparation like the Parsi dhansak or the South Indian sambhar.

Perhaps the simplest and most delicious way to prepare dal is to leave it alone. Well, not completely alone, but in the company of just a basic spicing of salt and a squeeze of lemon. This works best with moong dal, eaten with a more complex vegetable dish that provides the ‘taste’ and ‘appearance’ but needs the support of the dal to stand out. One step further along the culinary evolutionary chain is the dal that has tadka or chonk added to it – a tiny spoonful of ghee, in which is sputtered a pinch of asafoetida, a few mustard seeds and a couple of curry leaves is all that it takes to make magic. Adding dried red chillies, chopped ginger, green chillies, fried onions et al layers flavours on to the essential blandness of the dal, and mandates the rest of the meal is simpler, for the full pleasure of the experience. Some dals do well with pressure cooking, which rushes through the traditional process of simmering for hours, even overnight – as is done with the deliciously rich and creamy ma di dal, for instance, or the meaty, hearty dhansak – and pushes nuances of flavour and spice into what is rather tasteless and bland.

In India, the traditional stress buster is always considered to be dahi-chawal, a cool melange of softly cooked rice and fresh yoghurt. But khichdi, an almost-amorphous blend of rice and dal cooked together to a delicious tenderness, or a plateful of squishy dal eaten with ever-so-slightly overcooked rice and a dollop of ghee would do the same magic trick without too much effort. And that is exactly what eventually came to my table that day, once I had sorted out which dal I wanted to use!