Bangla Daal with a Hit of Lime

Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting! Excuse me!! .. 'scuse me, please... ! Bit of a rush here!!! Now you know why I am late? Missed it again! Old age and all that!! Then the decision.. what to make? I mean SO MANY things have lime juice in it! The mind boggles!
After a lot of thinking, just thinking, and missing the deadline (as usual) I stumbled upon a book Mangoes and Curry Leaves and picked it up ( and literally stumbled home with it! Gosh!! It's SO heavy!!)

So far I have just thumbed thru it and my eye caught this daal! Just what I needed for JFI (Yaaay!!! Coffee will accept the late entry) and also a chance to explore Bangla cuisine , in a safe manner! the author states

The name of this Bangladeshi classic is tok dal and
it's become one of our favorite versions of simple dal. Tok means sour in Bengali.

To go straight to the recipe: ( with slight modifications on my part and halving the original measures)
1/2 cup Masoor Daal, washed and drained
2 cups water
1/2 tsp Tamarind pulp
2 tbsp Oil ( recommended oil: Vegetable and Mustard in equal proportions)
1/4 tsp Ground Coriander
1/4 tsp Ground Cumin
1/4 tsp Cayenne
1/4 tsp Turmeric
1/4 tsp Ground/ finely minced Garlic
1/2 Onion, thinly sliced
Salt to taste
Juice of 1/2 Lime
Chopped Cilantro to garnish

The original recipe states that the Masoor dal should be boiled in an open pan till it is soft and mushy and also to skim off the hot water from top to soak the tamarind in and extract pulp. I skipped all the long procedure here and took a shortcut.

Pressure cook the masoor daal. Once done, mash and set aside. Soak (marble size) tamarind and extract pulp and discard solids or use Tamarind pulp (as I did, except that, in this case, the daal gets a dark hue).
Heat oil, add the coriander, cumin cayenne and stir fry ( be careful that you don't burn it)till fragrant. Add turmeric, garlic and onions and stir fry till onions are soft. add the tamarind pulp, daal and water to the desired consistency. Add salt. Let the daal boil. After switching off the heat, add the lime juice. Garnish with cilantro. Serve hot with rice.

Verdict: Simple and superb! The hubby had to be convinced that the daal was Masoor and not the usual Toor! Wonderful change from the usual and a keeper!

This daal is on it's way to Coffee at The Spice Cafe who is our hostess for JFI . Thank U Coffee, for accepting my late entry!

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