Subru Uncle's Toor Ki Dal(sindhi Style) Dad, Mom And I Love And

Total Time: 1 hr 5 mins Preparation Time: 20 mins Cook Time: 45 mins

Ingredients

• Servings: 4
• 1 1/2 cups yellow lentils, cleaned, washed and drained (toor dal)
• 4 tablespoons oil
• 1 teaspoon mustard seeds
• 1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds (methi)
• 1 teaspoon cumin seed
• 15 fresh curry leaves, washed and torn
• 3 inches fresh ginger, peeled, washed and finely chopped
• 2 teaspoons asafetida powder (commonly called 'hing' in hindi)
• 2 medium green chilies, washed and chopped
• 2 medium fresh tomatoes, washed, peeled and chopped
• 11 1/4 cups water, divided
• 2/3 cup tamarind pulp
• 1/2 teaspoon red chili powder
• 2 teaspoons turmeric powder
• 4 teaspoons salt

Recipe

• 1 pressure cook the lentils (toor dal) in a pressure cooker alongwith 6 cups of water until the lentils are tender.
• 2 heat oil in a pot on medium-high flame.
• 3 once its hot, add mustard seeds, methi seeds and cumin seeds.
• 4 allow to splutter and crackle.
• 5 once they stop doing so, add in the curry leaves and ginger.
• 6 stir-fry for 5 minutes until the raw smell of ginger is gone.
• 7 add asafoetida powder and continue to stir-fry for another 5-7 minutes.
• 8 toss in the green chillies, mix well and continue to stir-fry for another 2-3 minutes.
• 9 then add in the tomatoes and 1/4 cup of water to cook the tomatoes.
• 10 mix well and cook on high flame until the tomatoes are softened.
• 11 add salt, red chilli powder and turmeric powder.
• 12 mix well.
• 13 extract tamarind pulp from tamarind to use as tamarind water.
• 14 to do this, soak about 3 inches piece of tamarind in 1 cup of hot water.
• 15 squeeze to extract the tamarind pulp and let it mix with the water to form'tamarind water' (that's what i call it).
• 16 there is no need to pass this through a strainer- use it directly!
• 17 measure out 2/3 cup of tamarind water in a cup and add this tamarind water to the tomato mixture.
• 18 mix well and allow it to cook on medium-high flame for 5 minutes.
• 19 in the meantime, open the pressure cooker (by this time the lentils will be tender and the whistle would have blown) and with the help of a beater/mashing tool (we use what we call a'mandira' in hindi. this is a long wooden spoon with a round base that we use for mashing lentils, bananas, etc), in round circular motions, mash the lentils completely, until they mix with the water in which they were being cooked.
• 20 now add 5 cups of water alongwith the lentil and water mixture that was used to cook the lentils. add the tamarind-tomato mixture, mixing gracefully, as you sing your favourite kitchen song side-by-side!
• 21 allow this to come to a boil.
• 22 lower flame and cook for 10 more minutes on a simmer.
• 23 remove from flame and serve immediately with cooked long-grain basmati rice.
• 24 serve hot (we serve it immediately because it doesn't taste very good once it gets cold) alongwith low-fat plain yogurt on the side for a complete wonderful asian-indian meal in rice and lentil curry heaven!
• 25 my brother, manav, says that my wud-be hubby is a lucky man cos i'll cook this for him and oh my, my bro adores this curry!
• 26 please note: if you have a sore throat, a running nose, fever, cough and cold, then please omit the tamarind altogether because using tamarind juice in this recipe when you have a bad throat, will only make your throat worse. this curry cooks awesome even without the tamarind juice. enjoy!