Gujarati dal stands out with its sweetness from most other dal recipes. This recipe is a more elaborate version of a Gujarati dal, the wedding dal.
When I was looking for a recipe, I came across this one. Initially surprised to find yam as one of the ingredients, I looked further. And came across several other recipes which also contained it – all written by Gujarati women. So I thought this would be a great recipe for a typical Gujarati dal. Until I got strange looks by my in-laws when I served it.
What I did not know: this dal is rather untypical to get when you go and eat a Gujarati thali or what people cook day to day. After that valuable insight I looked a bit further and it is indeed the fancier version of the regular Gujarati dal.
The concept is of course the same, but you add several ingredients, here the yam, the pumpkin, the dates and the sesame seeds. But as it always is with traditional recipes, everybody has their own style that varies from others. So you may find sesame or dates in some families day to day dal.
Characteristics of a Gujarati Dal
What is key to a typical Gujarati dal is the sweetness and sourness. It is sweetened with jaggery (raw sugar from sugar cane and palm sugar, with the molasses) and the sourness comes from either lime or kokum (mangosteen). Kokum is a fruit that is rather hard to find in Europe. So unless you stumble across it in your Asian supermarket, I suggest to use lime. If you know where to find it outside Asia, please drop me a note, here or on Instagram.
An important step is the preparation of the tempering, the baghar. This happens seperately from the cooking of the dal.
The tempering is a common step in Indian cooking. In a separate pan, spices are fried to release their flavour into oil, which is then poured into the dish. You start with the mustard and the cumin seeds and fry them, until they splatter properly. The mustard seeds should splatter (which they really do, also out of your pan – use a lid!). I made the mistake, that I added the other spices too soon. You can actually see that in my picture here, that they’re not cracked, which they otherwise do when it splatters properly.
When they’re starting to crack, then add the other whole spices, like the cinnamon, red chilies, cloves and fenugreek. After frying those for a bit, add the asoefatida, the curry leaves, the ginger and the red chili powder. Don’t cook this for more than 15-20 seconds. Please sprinkle the chili powder on top of the other spices. Otherwise it burns very fast.
Your way to achieve a truly great Gujarati dal, is to balance the flavours. None of them is dominant, the sournees, sweetness or spicyness. For the consistency I was worried that my result here is to liquid. But there are various types, and this one is to be eaten from a small bowl, either with a spoon or commonly with a roti by dipping it into the dal.
If you want to learn more about Indian or Gujarati cooking, please take a look at the respective regional pages. You’ll find further recipes, alongside tips and the background of the cuisine.
Gujarati wedding dal – Lentil dish from Gujarat
Equipment
- Pressure cooker (optional)
Ingredients
- ½ cup toor dal
- ½ cup yam cubed
- ½ cup pumpkin cubed
- 1 tomato
- 1 handful peanuts
- 3 dates chopped (optional)
- 1 tsp. sesame seeds (optional)
- ½ tsp. turmeric powder
- 1 tsp. coriander powder
- 1 tsp. cumin powder
- 2 Tbsp. jaggery (substitute with brown sugar)
- 2 green chili slit lengthwise
- some lime
- salt to taste
- coriander chopped, to garnish
For the tempering
- 2 Tbsp. oil
- 1 tsp. mustard seeds (indian)
- ½ tsp. fenugreek seeds
- ½ tsp. cumin seeds
- ¼ tsp. asafoetida powder
- ½ tsp. ginger grated
- some curry leaves
- 1 red chili dried, whole
- 2 cloves
- 1 inch cinnamon
- 1 tsp. red chili powder
Instructions
- Wash the dal several times in water until the water remains clear. Then soak it for about 30 minutes.
- Add the dal together with the chopped tomato, chopped pealed yam, the peanuts, the dates, sesame seeds, half a teaspon of salt and two cups of water into a pressure cooker.
- If you don't own a pressure cooker, cook everything in a regular saucepan on medium heat until the dal is quite soft.If you do own one: on medium heat, cook until the cooker whistled 4 times, then wait for the pressure cooker to have cooled down, until the pressure has reduced.
- Whisk the dal mix properly. Add two cups of water (probably better to put everything into a bigger pot) and place it on the stove with medium heat.
- Now add the turmeric, cumin and coriander powders, the jaggery or sugar, the slit chilies, lemon juice and salt to taste. Boil everything up once, while stirring it frequently. Then keep it aside while preparing the tempering.
The tempering
- Now prepare the tempering in a small pan.
- Heat up oil and then add mustard seed, fenugreek seeds, cumin seeds, dried chili, cloves and cinnamon. When the seeds splatter properly, add the asafoetida, ginger, curry leaves and the chili powder for about 15 seconds. Pour everything, while it's still hot, into the dal.
- Add finely chopped coriander leaves and stir it once. Garnish with some chopped leaves.
- Dal is either served in small bowls or poured on top of rice.Enjoy!
Please rate my recipe before you leave 🙂:
Notes
Link to the source recipe: https://www.theroute2roots.com/gujarati-dal/
Cooked with love on From zero to curry.
