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Dal Makhani
Black lentils, hours on the stove, with butter and cream
👨🍳 Pro🍛 Main Course🥛 Vegetarian🕓 720 min
The dal worth sacrificing a Sunday for. Whole black urad lentils are soaked overnight and then simmered until they turn creamy on their own — no blender, no cream in the first third. Anything that looks like a shortcut costs you flavor.
👨🍳 Pro: Fermenting, deep-frying or layering. Needs time, patience and a quiet afternoon.
Prep480 min
Cook time240 min
Total720 min
ServesServes 6
Contains:
Milk
Refers to the recipe as written here. Store-bought ingredients may carry traces — please check the packet.
Ingredients
0 of 10✅ All set to cook!
Method
0 of 6🎉 All done — enjoy!
- Soak the urad lentils and rajma together in plenty of water for 8 hours or overnight.
- Drain, set on to boil with 1.5 l fresh water and salt, and cook 90 minutes, until a lentil can be fully crushed between your fingers. 40 minutes in a pressure cooker.
- Melt half the butter in a heavy pot, fry the ginger-garlic paste for 2 minutes, add the tomato puree and chili powder, and cook 12 minutes until the oil separates out.
- Add the cooked lentils along with their cooking water.
- Now the real part begins: simmer over the lowest heat for 2 to 3 hours, stirring every 15 minutes and pressing against the side of the pot with the back of the spoon. The lentils slowly break down on their own — that is exactly what gives you the creaminess.
- Stir in the cream, remaining butter, garam masala, and crushed kasuri methi during the final half hour.
Tips
- The point of no return is time — and it cannot be made up later. Stir in cream after an hour to force creaminess and you get lentils in cream, never dal makhani.
- Do not blend it. The creaminess comes from the lentils breaking down, not from a blender, and a blended dal tastes like it afterward.
- A heavy pot and the lowest flame. Scorched dal makhani after three hours is a very expensive mistake.
- It is better on the second day. Make double the amount.
Shop the Ingredients
Everything for this recipe is available from us in Munich — in store or delivered.
