The Bengali in this dish comes from panch phoran. That’s a spice mix that figures highly in Bengali cooking. Mustard seeds are big in Bengali cooking too. Double blast. If you can’t get panch phoran you can make this a half and half mix of mustard seeds and cumin seeds. It will still be tasty stuff. Indians have pretty much mastered the art of cooking lentils. Just visit an Indian grocery sometime. There’s must be 20 different types of lentils. Maybe more. There’s a lot of vegetarians in India and they have been cooking for thousands of years. No wonder they are so good at it.
The key to a good masoor dal is the tarka
They have an interesting way of approaching it too. A lot of western recipes cook the beans along with the aromatics. Basically chuck everything into a pot and simmer. Think vegetarian chili. Indians do it differently. The lentils cook with a minimum of other ingredients. They fry up the rest of the ingredients separately. They call that a tarka. At the last minute everything gets mixed together in a big jumble of delicious.
A big part of it is frying the spices in oil. Tempering them if you want the lingo. Many spices have fat soluble compounds that come out during this step. Doesn’t work with water. Has to be fat. It’s just one of those things. Until you start doing that your Indian cooking is never going to really get there.
This is one good bowl of lentil curry
I love lentils. Beans in general. And one of my favourites is the humble split red lentil. Masoor dal in India. In general, I am strongly opposed to cooking things until they absolutely fall apart. But something magical happens when you cook masoor dal to death. It goes from distinct lentils to this soupy mess of wonderful. Until you try it you have no idea. And until you have an idea I sound nuts. I know. But you need to try this. You really do…
