Dal Tadka

What Dal Tadka is

Dal tadka is cooked lentils given a tempering — whole spices fried in ghee until they crackle, then poured over the pot at the last moment. The tempering is not a garnish: it is where most of the flavour comes from, and it is added late precisely so the aromatics do not have time to cook away.

Dietary: VegetarianVegan if made with oilContains dairy if made with ghee

Allergens: Dairy (ghee)Wheat (asafoetida)

Where it comes from

Tadka, also called chhaunk or phoron, is a technique rather than a recipe, used across the whole subcontinent and applied to far more than lentils. Frying whole spices in hot fat extracts the oil-soluble compounds that water-based simmering cannot reach, which is why the same lentils taste flat before the tempering and complete after it.

How to eat it

Dal is poured over rice rather than eaten alone from the bowl, though a thin dal is sometimes drunk at the end of a meal. Take only as much rice as you will eat in the next few mouthfuls and pour over that. With bread, use the bread to scoop rather than dipping the whole piece. A squeeze of lemon at the table lifts a dal that has been sitting, which is why the wedge is served rather than stirred in.

Goes well with

• Plain steamed rice
• Jeera rice
• Roti and a dry vegetable

Ingredients

• 250 g Toor (pigeon pea) or masoor dal
• 1 tsp Turmeric
• 3 tbsp Ghee — Butter or oil works, but ghee is the traditional fat and tolerates the heat.
• 1 tsp Cumin seeds
• 1/2 tsp Mustard seeds
• 2 Dried red chillies
• 5 cloves Garlic, sliced
• a pinch Asafoetida — Contains wheat in most commercial blends.
• 1 Tomato, chopped
• 1 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder
• to finish Coriander leaf and lemon

How to cook it

1. 1Cook the lentils until they collapse

   Simmer the dal with turmeric, salt and water until completely soft and beginning to break down — around thirty minutes in a pan, or three whistles in a pressure cooker. Undercooked dal cannot be rescued by the tempering.

2. 2Whisk it smooth and adjust the body

   Beat the cooked dal briefly with a whisk or ladle to an even, pourable consistency, adding hot water as needed. It should coat a spoon but still run off it.

3. 3Heat the ghee until it shimmers

   The fat must be properly hot or the spices will stew instead of crackling. Test with one cumin seed — it should sizzle immediately.

4. 4Bloom the spices in order of hardness

   Mustard seeds first, then cumin, then the dried chillies and garlic, then asafoetida last. Each has a different tolerance for heat, and adding them together means either burnt garlic or raw mustard. The whole sequence takes under a minute.

5. 5Add the tomato and chilli powder briefly

   Stir in the chopped tomato and Kashmiri chilli and cook for two minutes until the tomato softens and the fat turns red.

6. 6Pour over and cover immediately

   Tip the whole tempering into the dal and put the lid on at once for two minutes so the aromatics are trapped rather than escaping into the kitchen. Finish with coriander and a squeeze of lemon.

Calories and nutrition

Per serving — 1 bowl (about 250 g)

Approximate values for a typical restaurant portion, calculated from standard ingredient tables. Actual figures vary with the kitchen, the oil used and the portion served. Not intended as medical or dietary advice.

Other dishes to read about

• Chicken Momo — Nepal's steamed dumpling, eaten by hand with a bowl of sesame-tomato achar.
• Veg Momo — The vegetarian momo, where the filling has to be seasoned harder to carry itself.
• Butter Chicken — Tandoori chicken finished in a tomato and cream gravy — mild, and deliberately so.
• Lamb Curry — Bone-in lamb cooked slowly until the sauce thickens around it.
• Chicken Biryani — Rice and marinated chicken layered raw, then sealed and steamed together.
• Mutton Biryani — The same method as chicken biryani, but the meat sets the timing.