Dal Makhani, a popular Indian dal recipe is also known as maa ki dal, as I discovered recently. This is my least favourite dal dish to order in a restaurant and I am yet to eat a good dal makhani in any restaurant except maybe Sahib Sindh Sultan who does do a pretty good dal makhani that even I can agree to order sometimes. Note: Check out another version of dal makhani recipe here.Ironically, my mom doesn’t cook this so this isn’t really maa ki dal to me. We are South Indians for whom dal doesn’t form part of a typical meal and though amma cooks an occasional rajma masala or paneer tikka masala, dal makhani is too foreign to us and never really occurred to her to try and cook, I guess.
Her daughter, obviously, loves to take on more than she can chew sometimes (literally!) and takes pleasure in experimenting on never-before-cooked recipes especially when she has guests. I most often mess up on my most tried and tested recipes when I have guests (is it the pressure or is it the expected behaviour, I can never tell).
Anyway, dal makhani has been on the back of my head forever and I recently got a bag of whole black lentils (whole black urad dal) and I decided to try it on an evening we had a young North Indian couple. Brave, aren’t I? 😉
This is a milder version of the dish as I was serving it with spiced up vegetable pulao. I also avoided the cream that is usually an essential ingredient for this recipe.
Dal Makhani Recipe
(Serves 4)Ingredients:
1/2 cup whole ural dal (black lentils), soaked overnight
4 tbsp rajma (red kidney beans), soaked overnight with the dal
1 onion, chopped fine
1 tomato, chopped fine
2-3 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
1/2 tsp cumin seeds (jeera)
1 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp red chilly powder
2 dried red chillies
2 tbsp milk
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp oil
SaltHow to make Dal Makhani:
1. Heat oil in a pressure cooker and saute onions till transparent. Add salt, chilly powder and the ginger-garlic pasted and fry for a minute.
2. Next, add the chopped tomatoes and cook for a few minutes so that the mixture combines well together. Add the lentils and beans, and enough water to just cover them. Pressure cook for 3-4 whistles. Remove from fire and set aside.
3. Once the pressure leaves the cooker, keep it on a low fire. Add the milk and bring to boil. Keep it on sim and let it boil while preparing to temper it.
4. Heat the butter and oil in a pan and throw in the cumin seeds. Once they start spluttering, add the chopped garlic and the red chillies each torn into 3 pieces. Fry until the garlic starts browning and smelling lovely.
5. Remove the dal from fire and add the tempered butter-oil directly to it. Follow immediately with garam masala and mix well. Adjust salt.
Serve with warm rotis, naan or an easy veg pulao.
very very high in iron so a great recipe for veggies. thanks
This looks like a fantastic recipe, I really want to try it but I don't have a pressure cooker… how would i modify it to cook it in a normal saucepan? Cheers!
Sophie, you can wash the lentils and cook it half-covered until soft. it will take atleast 45 mins and up to an hour or so.
Dude, you came in #2 for my search for Dal Makhani!! I am kicked! I feel like you're a celebrity 🙂
hehe thanks Sri. Yeah, the dal makhani recipe is quite popular. I am planning version 2 – dal makhani recipe very soon, so stay tuned!
Hi Rahul. You can fry the stuff directly in the pressure cooker pan without placing another vessel inside, just like using a kadai. After that, add the other ingredients and pressure cook as normal directly in the pan. Hope this makes sense.
Hi! Your recipe looks delicious and I'd love to try it out. I'm just a little confused about how you fry something in the pressure cooker and how you add milk to it and then boil it. I'm a complete beginner cook so any advice is appreciated: my pressure cooker is the standard Indian type with the whistle and seals shut. I only have two steel vessels that go in it but are too thin to cook directly over the gas. Would it be fine to do steps 1 and 2 in a pan or pot and then transfer stuff into the pressure cooker? Thanks!
jaaji, yes, this is just a slight variation from the usual dal makhani recipe. I don't think it actually resembles sambar though 🙂 will post the more popular dal makhani variation soon!
The method seems to be a take on the sambhar methodology..I would stick to the original method and add the cream to get the real flavor.
I tried this after a long day…and I am still licking my fingers! Thanks so much for a easy and delicious recipe!