Capsicum Ginger Dal – Comfort Food Series

My love for dals is no secret for the blog readers, I love them.  They add such a comfort factor to the meal and when not in a mood to cook too much a dal rice or dal roti meal is one of the most comforting things ever. I grew up eating a variety of dals which we couldn’t remember the names of, we would always refer to dals with color and sizes so the channa would be big yellow walla, the toor dal would be sambhar walli dal, moong dal would be small yellow dal, urad would be white and the whole urad would be black dal. You get the gist. Inspite of making so many dals, one thing that mom never did was experimenting with the things that go into the dals, the tadka was more or less the same. As I grew up I started experimenting with dals more and more, I love adding a little flavour here and there to the dal which gives the dal a complete facelift

Also what I have realized over time is that with dal, the simplest flavours work the best, flavours which blend well together but still don’t overpower the taste of the basic dal and the other stuff added to it. This capsicum ginger dal does exactly the same. Every spoonful is full of taste, the slight spiciness of the capsicum, the sharpness of ginger and the earthiness of the moongdal. I can safely claim that offlate this is one of the best dals I have tasted

Recipe – Capsicum Ginger Dal

Source – a long time ago discussion with a friend

What I used

• 1 cup Moong Dal
• Water about 2-2 1/2 cups depending on how thick you want your dal
• 2 medium sized Finely Chopped Capsicum
• 2″ inch piece of fresh ginger, finely chopped
• 1/2 tsp chilli flakes
• 1 tsp oil
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• handful of curry leaves
• salt to taste

How I made it

• Wash the moong dal well till you the water running clean. Soak for about 30 minutes or so
• Add water, capsicum and ginger to the dal and keep for boiling in an open pan
• Once it starts to boil, reduce the flame and cook till tender. This will take about 8-10 mins, yes you can use pressure cooker but I feel moong dal always becomes mush when you boil it in the pressure cooker but if you are confident please go ahead and do it
• At this point add the salt and the chilli flakes
• In a small pan, heat oil add mustard seeds and let them splutter, add curry leaves and fry for half a minute. Add this to the dal and boil further for 2 mins
• Serve hot with steamed rice or roti