Recipe: Street café dal from Curry Everyday by Atul Kochhar

Create Atul Kochhar's street cafe dal from his latest cookbook Curry Everyday

This dish is my personal favourite dal recipe, and when it’s freshly made I think the flavours are simply amazing. It’s a very Indian thing to go to street-side cafés for dal and roti.

When this or similar dal recipes are on the menu at my restaurants, I serve them with flatbreads cooked in a tandoor oven, but at home I recommend parathas.

Serves 3 as a sharing dish

• 200g split yellow peas (toor daal or split pigeon peas), rinsed and soaked in cold water to cover for 20 minutes
• 750ml water
• ½tsp ground turmeric
• 3 tomatoes, chopped
• Sea salt
• Freshly squeezed lemon juice, to taste

For the tarka

• 1tbs ghee
• 7.5g butter
• 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1tsp cumin seeds
• 1tsp black mustard seeds
• 1 large dried red chilli
• 8-10 fresh or dried curry leaves
• 2 long, thin green chillies, split lengthwise
• ½tsp red chilli powder

To garnish

• Fried curry leaves
• Fried red chillies
• Chilli oil

Drain the split peas, then place them in a large saucepan with a lid over a medium-high heat with the water, turmeric and ½ teaspoon salt, and stir together. Bring to the boil, skimming the surface, if necessary, then lower the heat a little and leave to simmer for five minutes. Stir in the tomatoes, cover the pan and simmer for 10-15 minutes until the split peas are very tender. Use the back of a spoon to lightly crush the split peas and tomatoes against the side of the pan. Set aside and keep hot.

To make the tarka, melt the ghee and butter together in a frying pan over a medium-high heat until sizzling. Reduce the heat to medium, add the garlic and stir constantly until it just starts to brown. The aroma should be amazing at this point.

Add the cumin seeds, mustard seeds and red chilli, and continue stirring until the seeds crackle and pop. Watch closely so the garlic doesn’t burn.

Stir in the curry leaves, green chillies and chilli powder, then quickly add a ladleful of the lentil mixture to this pan. Tip the contents of this pan into the split peas and stir together.

Return the split peas to the boil. Stir in the lemon juice and adjust the salt, if necessary. Garnish with the fried curry leaves and red chillies, and a generous glug of chilli oil, and serve.

Photo: Mark Cooper