Hello and welcome back class! Today I thought it would be a great idea to make one of my favorite dishes from Indian cuisine, Dal Tadka. Now for those of you who are unfamiliar with the languages of the Indian subcontinent, the word dal, sometimes spelled daal, is a term that describes any type of dried, and split legume, such as beans, peas, and most importantly lentils. Thus, what constitutes a dal in one region of India can vary significantly from the dal in another region.
Tadka, on the other hand, refers to a type of fried garnish, usually consisting of oil, or ghee, and a number of various spices, which is typically poured over finished dal. It is often translated as tempering (which is the terminology I will be using) and serves the purpose of providing a deep, and strong flavor to the dal, or any other dish you add it to. Put those two together and you get dal tadka, which is arguably (though most would agree that there is no contest) the most common, and popular type of dal in the Indian subcontinent.
Today’s version of dal tadka is my personal take on the one made by Dassana Amit over at vegrecipesofindia.com, which I highly recommend checking out if you are interested in any other Indian dishes. And just as I customized Dassanas recipe to better fit my needs, so can you customize my recipe to better fit your needs? For starters, you have a lot of leeway when it comes to what type of dal you can use. Dassana, for example, likes to use yellow dal for her dal tadka, however, I couldn’t find such a dal in any of my local grocery stores and had to settle on a mixture of green and red lentils.
So, try to keep it easy on yourself, and just use whatever lentils you can easily find in your local store. Another area for customization is its spiciness. Now I like my dal to have a pretty good kick, which is why my recipe uses a total of 8 chili peppers. However, if you are someone who doesn’t have a high tolerance for spicy food, or are a little worried that this might be too spicy for your liking, then please try it out first with fewer chili peppers. In my experience, it is much better to make something and realize that it needs to be made spicier the next time than to make something so spicy that you can’t even enjoy eating it. Ok, I think that just about covers it, so let’s get cooking, and enjoy some delicious dal tadka.
Dal Tadka Recipe
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: about an hour
Servings: 8
Ingredients
2 Cups of dried lentils
1 Medium yellow onion (diced)
2 Medium tomatoes (diced)
4 Green chili peppers, such as serrano, or thai (destemmed and cut in half lengthwise)
1 Tablespoon of fresh ginger (finely minced)
1 Teaspoon of turmeric powder
½ Teaspoon of garam masala
1 Bunch of fresh cilantro (finely chopped)
Salt
For the tempering or tadka
4 Tablespoons of neutral oil
8 cloves of garlic, chopped into small chunks
½ Teaspoon of cumin seeds
3 to 4 dry chilies de arbol
1 Teaspoon of red chili powder
Instructions
1. Cook the Lentils: Quickly wash the lentils and then toss them into a big pot along with the onion, tomatoes, green chili peppers, ginger, and turmeric powder. Then pour 8 to 9 cups of water into this pot and place it over high heat on a stovetop until it reaches a boil.
Once it starts to boil, cover the pot and lower the heat so that the pot simmers. Let this all simmer until the lentils are nice and soft, which should be about 30 minutes to an hour depending on the type of lentils you are using. 
You will know that the lentils are fully cooked when the mash easily between your thumb and index finger.
- You can also make this one day ahead of time as it will help the flavors blend a little
- Mash & finish the dal: Take the dal off of the heat and let it cool down for a minute or two. Then get out a potato masher and mash some of the lentils so that it thickens up. It’s important that I state that we don’t want to mash all of the lentils, we simply want to mash about 1/10th of them so that the dal thickens up a bit. At the end add in ½ a teaspoon of garam masala, a couple of pinches of finely chopped cilantro, and salt to taste.
- Make the tempering: Get out a small pot and add the 4 tablespoons of oil to it. Then place this pot over medium-low heat so that the oil is hot enough to fry in, but not smoking. Once the oil has become hot, toss in the cumin seeds and let them lightly fry in the oil for about a minute, stirring constantly. Then add in the chili de arbol, and garlic, and let them both fry in the oil for about 2 minutes, or until the garlic starts to take on a slightly golden brown color.
After you have done this, toss in the chili powder, stir it into the tempering, and quickly take the pot off of the heat. Finally, pour all of the tempering straight into the dal, and stir it in.
- Serve & enjoy
Dal Tadka Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 Cups of dried lentils
- 1 Medium yellow onion diced
- 2 Medium tomatoes diced
- 4 Green chili peppers such as serrano, or thai (destemed and cut in half lengthwise)
- 1 Tablespoon of fresh ginger finely minced
- 1 Teaspoon of turmeric powder
- ½ Teaspoon of garam masala
- 1 Bunch of fresh cilantro finely chopped
- Salt
- For the tempering or tadka
- 4 Tablespoons of neutral oil
- 8 cloves of garlic chopped into small chunks
- ½ Teaspoon of cumin seeds
- 3 to 4 dry chilies de arbol
- 1 Teaspoon of red chili powder
Instructions
- Cook the Lentils: Quickly wash the lentils and then toss them into a big pot along with the onion, tomatoes, green chili peppers, ginger, and turmeric powder. Then pour 8 to 9 cups of water into this pot and place it over a high heat on a stove top until it reaches a boil. Once it starts to boil, cover the pot and lower the heat so that the pot simmers. Let this all simmer until the lentils are nice and soft, which should be about 30 minutes to an hour depending on the type of lentils you are using. You will know that the lentils are fully cooked when the mash easily between your thumb and index finger.
- You can also make this one day ahead of time as it will help the flavors blend a little
- Mash & finish the dal: Take the dal off of the heat, and let it cool down for a minute or two. Then get out a potato masher and mash some of the lentils so that it thickens up. It’s important that I state that we don’t want to mash all of the lentils, we simply want to mash about 1/10th of them so that the dal thickens up a bit. At the end add in ½ a teaspoon of garam masala, a couple pinches of finely chopped cilantro, and salt to taste.
- Make the tempering: Get out a small pot and add the 4 tablespoons of oil to it. Then place this pot over a medium low heat so that the oil is hot enough to fry in, but not smoking. Once the oil has become hot, toss in the cumin seeds and let them lightly fry in the oil for about a minute, stirring constantly. Then add in the chili de arbol, and garlic, and let them both fry in the oil for about 2 minutes, or until the garlic starts to take on a slightly golden brown color. After you have done this, toss in the chili powder, stir it into the tempering, and quickly take the pot off of the heat. Finally, pour all of the tempering straight into the dal, and stir it in.
If you enjoyed of dal tadka then check out our recipe for aloo gobi
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