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Toor Daal

By Simran Sharma
🎙️ Listen to the related episode
Toor DalVegan
Toor Daal

Flavour Notes

rich, flavourful toor daal, with cinnamon and mustard oil

Ingredients

  • For the pressure cooker or pot
  • 1.25 cups of toor daal (pigeon pea skinned and split)
  • 1.5 cups of chopped red onion, between a fine and medium dice
  • 1-1.25 cups of chopped tomato, chunky - 1 inch pieces
  • 2 dried red chilis
  • 1/4 tsp of turmeric
  • finish with
  • 2/3 cup of chopped fresh coriander leaves, divided
  • 1/2 lemon

Tarka / Vagar / Tempering

  • generous 1/3 cup of mustard oil or vegetable oil
  • 1.5 tsp of cumin seeds
  • 0.5 tsp of mustard seed
  • 2 inch thin piece of cinnamon (not rolled but flat)
  • 1 small red thai chili, finely sliced or chopped (or more for more intense heat)
  • 1 tsp of salt
  • 1 tsp of kashmiri or other chili powder
  • 2 tsp of coriander powder
  • 1 tsp of cumin powder
  • 0.5 tsp of turmeric

Method

  1. Wash and rinse the toor daal until the water becomes clear, or at least clearer. Usually at least 4 or more times.
  2. Pre-heat pressure cooker on stove on a high temperature
  3. After 2 min of pre-heating, add: toor daal, 4 cups of water, salt, tomatoes, 2 dried red chilis, turmeric.
  4. Close pressure cooker and wait for 2-3 whistles. Then turn off heat. Let it sit and depressurize on its own
  5. To make the tarka, heat a karai, wok or pot on high. Add mustard oil.
  6. Once mustard oil starts to smoke a bit, add the onions, mustard seeds and cumin seeds, cinnamon stick, fresh red chili
  7. keep stirring the pot from time to time so that onions cook
  8. Add salt, kashmiri chili powder, coriander powder, cumin powder, and turmeric
  9. Continue to stir and cook on a medium/high heat until the onions have browned and cooked down.
  10. Turn heat to low, cover the karai, turn heat to low and then let it continue to cook for 5-7min
  11. Check pressure cooker to see if any pressure still needs releasing. If so, release pressure.
  12. Carefully open pressure cooker and add tarka to the pressure cooker.
  13. Put it on a burner and let it simmer on a low heat for an additional 5 min with cover loosely on
  14. Add half of the fresh coriander and let simmer for another 2 min
  15. Before serving, add juice of 1/2 a fresh lemon, and rest of the coriander as garnish. Serve with rice.

Notes

  • If you don't have a pressure cooker, you can use a regular pot, just add more water and cover it and cook for at least 25 min or until the toor daal is very soft.
  • Mustard oil needs to be brought to its smoking point to reduce its rawness and intensity. If you are using vegetable oil, do not cook until smoking. Cook until hot and shimmery