The famous Indian Ayurveda is not just cooking, it is a mysterious country filled with magical symbols. The main dish is dal, a soup made from beans, vegetables and many other ingredients. Let’s say right away that this dish is not for meat-eaters; you won’t find a speck of meat in it, only vegetables and spices. It also has a second name - moong dal, indicating the fact that the soup is prepared from small peas, called moong in India.
Secrets of making dal soup
The basic recipe for dhal soup calls for mung peas, but dal can also be prepared with other legumes: lentils, regular peas. The main thing is that the beans are boiled to a point where you can easily mash them with your fingers. The final step in preparing the dish is frying the spices in ghee. And here it is, a mystery. What is ghee butter?
We take the butter, melt it, skim off the foam that forms on the surface, and in the remainder we get a transparent consistency, which is the same ghee butter. We add it to the dal soup along with the spices fried in it. You will need a lot of spices, but the basis is garam masala (a classic Indian spice mixture).
In some states of India, moong dal is prepared, but if you try this soup, you will not find any differences from the basic recipe. The only thing that can add subtle nuances to the flavor bouquet of dal soup is an arbitrary dosage of spices and seasonings by the housewife herself.
Spices in ghee oil are fried step by step, following a certain sequence of placing them in hot oil.
The secret of India's national dish
Indians know that spices are the main ingredient in dal soup. The recipe is very simple, and some components can be changed. But everything related to spices is non-negotiable - this is the main element, indispensable in the cooking process. After frying them in ghee, they need to sit for a while. You can add spices only at the end of cooking. The classic soup contains ginger, garam masala, turmeric, salt, asafoetida and cumin. You can also add curry leaves, black and white pepper, coriander, nutmeg, dry garlic, mustard seeds, chili powder, Malabar cinnamon leaves.
To make ghee you will need butter. It is heated, the foam is removed and spices are fried on it. In this case, a certain sequence must be observed. First, cumin is fried, then ginger, garlic, coriander and garam masala mixture. It is necessary to constantly stir the contents; the cooking time should not exceed 1.5 minutes. Without following basic rules, the cook may end up with burnt spices.
Basic version of dal soup
The sheer amount of ingredients that go into the basic recipe is impressive and makes the dal seem like a complex dish. Let's not be scared, because in India, dhal is prepared in many families just for dinner. So, here's what we'll take for this dish:
- orange lentils – 400 grams;
- bell pepper – 2 pieces;
- cauliflower – 5-6 inflorescences;
- onions – 2 large heads;
- tomatoes - 3 pieces;
- carrots – 1 piece;
- garlic – 5 cloves;
- dried ginger – 1 teaspoon;
- turmeric, curry – 1 teaspoon each;
- zira – ½ teaspoon;
- salt to taste;
- ghee oil for frying spices;
- vegetable oil – 2 tablespoons;
- basil, parsley, cilantro for sprinkling when serving.
Preparation:
- Sort the lentils and soak for 2-3 hours. Dhal can be prepared from any variety of lentils. In our recipe we used orange, which cooks faster.
- Pour the soaked lentils into a saucepan, add 2 liters of water, wait for the water to boil, reduce the heat intensity, and cook for about half an hour.
- Let's move on to processing vegetables. We peel the onion and garlic, remove the grains from the bell pepper, and wash all the vegetables.
- Cut the sweet pepper into rings, finely chop the onion and carrots, and cut the tomatoes into small cubes.
- Cut the garlic cloves into large pieces.
- Boil the cauliflower inflorescences. We don’t pour out the broth, we will need it for the soup.
- We get Ghee butter (see description above). Pour the transparent mixture into a frying pan and heat it up. Add carrots. Fry for 2-3 minutes.
- Add cumin, turmeric, and curry to the pan one by one. Stir and let fry for 3-4 minutes.
- Pour vegetable oil into another frying pan and fry the onion in it until golden brown. Add ginger and garlic to it, warm it up a little, and send it to another frying pan with carrots and spices. We don't turn off the fire.
- Add tomato cubes and half rings of bell pepper to the simmering mass. Introduce cauliflower. Close the lid and simmer for another 3-4 minutes.
- Add the prepared vegetables to the lentils in the pan. Add broth. Sprinkle with salt and black pepper. Simmer for one minute. Turn it off. Wait 5 minutes for the soup to steep.
- When pouring Indian dal soup into bowls, sprinkle it with herbs.
How to make Dal Tarkari Bean Soup
Pour water into the pan. Add bay leaf, cinnamon, salt and bring to a boil.
Throw pre-soaked beans into boiling water.
When the water boils for the second time, cover the pan with a lid (but do not close it!), reduce the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally and skimming off the foam.
At this time, cut the vegetables into small cubes or as you like.
Next, throw the vegetables into the pan, add turmeric and oil. Cover the pan with a lid and continue to cook as long as it takes to ensure that the beans are completely boiled.
Separately, melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a frying pan and add cumin seeds and pepper.
When the cumin seeds become darker, add ginger and asafoetida to them and fry for just under a minute, stirring all the time.
The contents of the frying pan should be added to the pan. Then cover the soup with a lid and cook for about 5-7 minutes over low heat.
Moong dal recipe
We have already said that dal is the national dish of Indian cuisine, but, as is often the case in cooking, there are a lot of recipes for preparing the dish. We suggest you prepare one of them. To do this you need to take:
- a mixture of different varieties of lentils - 1 cup;
- large head of onion;
- tomatoes – 4-6 pieces;
- garlic – 4-5 cloves;
- turmeric – 1 teaspoon;
- ginger to your taste;
- vegetable oil – 2 tablespoons;
- butter (for preparing dressing) – 3 tablespoons;
- cumin – half a teaspoon;
- mustard seeds – 1 teaspoon;
- dill or cilantro – 1 bunch;
- chili pepper – 1-2 pieces;
- vegetable broth - 3 cups;
- pepper and salt to taste.
Preparation:
- The lentil mixture must be thoroughly sorted, washed, and soaked for 2-3 hours.
- Pour vegetable oil into a saucepan and bring to a boil.
- Chop garlic, ginger and onion. Place in a saucepan in this order: garlic, after 2-3 minutes onion, after 2-3 minutes ginger. Add the diced tomatoes and simmer until all the ingredients soften.
- We put everything into a saucepan, add the lentils, dilute with vegetable broth, and cook until fully cooked.
- While the base is cooking, let's make the dressing.
- Heat the butter in a frying pan, skim off the foam, add cumin, mustard seeds, and chili pepper. Fry until the mustard seeds begin to “jump” out of the pan, exploding from the heat. Transfer the contents of the frying pan to the ingredients in the pan, simmer for one minute, turn off.
Garnish the dal fry with finely chopped cilantro or dill.
How to make spicy dhal soup with lentils and vegetables
Pour the lentils into a bowl and add a glass of cold water. After half an hour, drain the water and rinse two or three times. Let it cook, adding half a liter of water. As soon as it boils, reduce the heat to the lowest setting, cook for half an hour to forty minutes, adding water little by little.
While the lentils are cooking, prepare the vegetable dressing for the dhal. Cut two onions into small cubes.
Chop the carrots into strips or cut them into cubes and grate them through a coarse grater.
Rinse the lime and hot pepper pods (the amount is at your discretion). Peel the garlic and ginger root.
Cut the tomatoes into small cubes or slices. You can use thick tomato juice instead of fresh tomatoes or add tomato sauce.
Boil the lentils until soft; they should knead easily when pressed.
Place half the butter in a frying pan and melt. Finely grate ginger and garlic into hot oil. Fry for a few seconds until the aroma intensifies. Add the onion and sauté for three minutes.
Place carrots in a frying pan, mix with sautéed vegetables and leave to simmer over low heat for about three minutes.
As soon as the carrots soften a little and are saturated with oil, add pieces of tomatoes or pour in juice or sauce. After stirring, simmer the vegetable dressing, lightly frying the tomatoes (when adding juice or sauce, evaporate the excess liquid).
Melt the rest of the butter in a separate frying pan and add all the spices. Mix quickly, heat for half a minute, stirring constantly so as not to burn.
Carefully pour the oil and spices into the boiling lentils. We also send vegetable dressing there. Add water to the desired thickness. Salt the soup to taste and let simmer for five minutes or until the vegetables are cooked.
Leave the finished Dhal soup covered on a warm burner. After 10-15 minutes it will infuse and can be served, seasoned with lime juice or sprinkled with herbs to your taste.
Dal is one of the most popular dishes in traditional Indian cuisine. The roots of the preparation of this dish go back to ancient times, when vegetarianism and Ayurveda were at the peak of their popularity. The dish dal in different regions of India has its own name and recipe. For example, in the east of the country it is called dhal, but in the north it is called daal. The basis of this dish is always boiled pulses, which are considered an integral part of traditional Indian vegetarian cuisine.
Dal is a puree soup made from legumes with the addition of various spices, herbs and herbs that make the dish unique. Even in poor families in India, dal is considered a mandatory dish on the table. To prepare it, I use a variety of types of legumes: lentils, chickpeas, pigeon peas, Urdu and so on. Depending on the region, various ingredients are added to the puree soup: coconut milk, tomatoes, garlic, curry, lemon juice, fried onions, zucchini and more.
This recipe is a classic dish, namely red lentil dal, with a huge amount of spices, including panch poran.
How to make red lentil dal
Prepare all ingredients.
Heat a frying pan over medium heat. Melt a piece of coconut oil and fry the spices until the aroma develops.
Cut the tomatoes and carrots into medium-sized slices.
Fry them in a frying pan with spices for 3-4 minutes.
Rinse the lentils and add them to the pan. Stir and continue frying for a couple of minutes.
Add water, coconut milk and salt. Reduce heat to medium-low and let lentils simmer, covered.
The lentils will be ready in about 15 minutes. At the end, squeeze 1-2 tablespoons of juice from the lemon and mix everything.
Red lentil dal is ready, bon appetit!
Light and tender Indian soup
We invite you to embark on a virtual journey through distant India. And we will help you and tell you how to prepare real Indian soup.
Indian shrimp soup
In India this soup is called Jafrani Shorba. It is very light, tender and tasty.
Ingredients:
- shrimp – 1 kg;
- low-fat chicken broth - 1 l;
- flour – 4 tbsp. spoons;
- butter – 2 tbsp. spoons;
- sugar – 0.5 teaspoon;
- cream – 200 ml;
- salt, freshly ground white pepper, turmeric - to taste.
Preparation
Cleaning the shrimp. Bring the broth to a boil, put the shrimp in it and boil for 3 minutes.
Melt the butter in a frying pan, add flour and, stirring, fry it for 2 minutes, then add about 100 ml of broth, stir well again so that there are no lumps and pour the mixture into the pan.
Boil for another 5 minutes. Then add salt, freshly ground white pepper, sugar, turmeric and cream, mix and that’s it! The soup is ready! We serve it to the table hot.
Indian soup with dried apricots and lentils
Ingredients:
- red lentils – 150 g;
- dried apricots – 100 g;
- carrots – 80 g;
- tomatoes – 100 g;
- garlic – 2 cloves;
- ginger root – 15 g;
- water – 1.2 l;
- salt, suneli hops, pepper - to taste.
Preparation
First, wash the lentils. Then wash the dried apricots and soak them in hot water for 20-30 minutes. Peel the onions and carrots and cut them into small cubes. We chop the garlic in the same way.
Peel the ginger root and grate it on a fine grater. Now put the onions, carrots and ginger into a pan, add spices, add water and put on fire. Cut dried apricots into cubes.
Pour boiling water over the tomatoes, peel them and chop the pulp.
Add lentils to lightly boiled onions and carrots and boil everything together for about 15 minutes. After that, add dried apricots, tomatoes and chopped garlic. Stir the soup, add salt and spices to taste and let it brew for 10-15 minutes. Then pour it into plates, sprinkle with chopped herbs and serve. If desired, you can add sour cream.
Ingredients:
- peeled shrimp – 200 g;
- zucchini – 250 g;
- carrots – 200 g;
- fresh ginger – 20 g;
- petiole celery – 50 g;
- onion – 100 g;
- garlic – 2-3 cloves;
- coconut milk – 250 ml;
- vegetable oil – 50 ml;
- water – 1 l.;
- chili pepper – 1 pc.;
- curry – 1 teaspoon;
- carnation inflorescences – 3 pcs.;
- salt - to taste.
Preparation
Peel carrots, zucchini, celery and cut into small cubes. Place them in a saucepan, add water, and after it boils, add salt, cloves and cook until the vegetables are ready. Finely chop the onion and garlic, grate the ginger on a fine grater. Fry onion, garlic and ginger in vegetable oil, add chili and curry.
After the vegetables are cooked, remove them from the broth, use a blender to puree them, and add fried onions, garlic and ginger to the broth. Slowly pour coconut milk into the vegetable puree.
Then return the mixture to the pan, as soon as the soup boils, add shrimp, add more salt if necessary and cook for 5 minutes.
