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Dal Tadka
Yellow lentils with a hot spiced oil poured on top
🌱 Beginner🍛 Main Course🌿 Vegan🕑 40 min
The dish that's on the table in India every single day. Lentils are simmered until soft and finished with a tadka - spices that bloom in hot fat and get poured over the finished dal. That one step is what turns lentil mush into a dish.
🌱 Beginner: Nothing here can go wrong. If you can boil pasta, you can cook this.
Prep10 min
Cook time30 min
Total40 min
Serves4 servings
Contains:
Mustard
Refers to the recipe as written here. Store-bought ingredients may carry traces — please check the packet.
Ingredients
0 of 13✅ All set to cook!
Method
0 of 6🎉 All done — enjoy!
- Wash the dal twice in cold water, until the water runs clear. Set it on to cook with the water, turmeric and salt.
- Cover and simmer for 25–30 minutes, until the lentils fall apart. Whisk vigorously once with a whisk - that is what creates the creaminess. Too thick? Add hot water.
- For the tadka, heat the oil in a small pan until properly hot. Add the cumin and mustard seeds - they need to pop and turn fragrant immediately.
- Add the hing, garlic and red chili. Let the garlic go only golden, not dark - 30 to 40 seconds.
- Take the pan off the heat, stir in the chili powder (off the heat but still in the hot fat, or it burns), then fry the tomato in for 1 minute.
- Pour the whole tadka over the dal - it will sizzle. Stir through briefly, scatter coriander on top.
Tips
- Toor dal is the original and takes longer; masoor dal (red lentils) is soft in 20 minutes and the easier choice for a first attempt.
- Hing smells dreadful straight from the tin and tastes in the food like onion and garlic combined. A pinch is enough.
- Chili powder always goes into the fat off the heat. Burnt chili powder is bitter and beyond saving.
- Using ghee instead of oil makes it no longer vegan, but noticeably rounder.
Shop the Ingredients
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