Pepper Dal

Pepper Dal

Dal is not one of my favourite side dish for roti mainly because I find it a bit bland and boring. However, my husband likes a simple tadka dal with rotis. Depending on how much time I have in the morning, I may exclude lentil in our lunch and on such days I add it to our dinner menu. One such day, it was on the menu but I was also considering an extra dish to spice things up. How easily i forgot I had a baby at home! Long story short, I had no time and had to rush. Then, bingo, I thought it aubergines in mung dal worked quite well, why will capsicum/pepper in tuvar dal not work. So that’s how I created this dish and I must say that this is the best dal dish that I have ever had. We were literally scraping the dish as we could not get enough of it! How much flavour a cooking process like charring can add is really surprising. Now to the recipe...

½ cup tuvar dal, pressure cooked

1 large green pepper

1 large red pepper

1 onion, finely chopped

½ tomato, cubed

1 teapsoon cumin seeds

1 teaspoon coriander powder

½ teaspoon dhansak masala or garam masala

Handful of coriander leaves

Salt to taste

Turmeric powder

4 cloves garlic, chopped

Char the peppers in direct flame, cool and peel them. Chop roughly and keep aside (sorry, no pic of that)

Heat some oil, add cumin seeds and once brown add onions and garlic. Fry until it just starts to brown

Add the peppers and tomatoes and fry until tomato is just cooked

Add coriander powder, turmeric powder and dhansak masala powder, salt

Add cooked dal and some water and simmer for about five minutes. Make sure there is enough water and bear in mind that it will become thicker as it cools down

Add chopped coriander leaves and serve with fresh rotis/chapatti or rice