Yellow Dhal (Lentil) Curry

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Dhal Curry Ingredients

2 cups of dhal (this is half-split pink-red coloured pulse, called Masoor dhal or lentils).

Depending on your taste for it, this could be sufficient for 2-6 people.

Two pods of peeled garlic, diced.

Half a teaspoon of turmeric powder

Half a tablespoon of mustard seeds

Half a tablespoon of cumin

Half a tablespoon of fennel

Half an onion, sliced

Five red dried chillies, broken into smaller pieces

Difficult to get ingredients

Ten curry leaves (these about 2 cm-long green pinnate leaves have a strong aroma. You can use the thumb and index finger to hold one edge of the pinnate, and hold the closest leaves on either side of the axis with the thumb and index fingers of the other hand and pull all the leaves down to separate them from the axis)

Two tablespoons of coconut milk (you can use either canned unsweetened coconut milk or, in the absence of it, dried unsweetened coconut powder with water)

Cooking Method

Wash the dhal thoroughly and boil, with four cups of water. Remove the scum that forms on top as the dhal begins to boil. When the lentils start turning yellow (half cooked), add the diced garlic.

When the dhal is cooked, remove it from the cooker. Take a separate pot and add oil. When the oil is hot, add the mustard seeds. When they start popping up, add the fennel and cumin. Add the onions, the curry leaves and the dried chillies (split).

Add the dhal curry to the hot mixture. Add turmeric powder, and coconut milk. Add salt.

Enjoy.

Dhal is a very versatile dish and in some South Asian cultures is almost a must for any special occasion meal, particularly if it is a vegetarian rice and curry meal. You can also enjoy a simple meal of dhal curry, pickles and yoghurt. Alternatively, dhal can also be a companion for a meal with bread, roti or stringhoppers.

A Vegetarian, Six Curry Take Out

Decided to have a vegetarian lunch, but at home. So, went to a Sri Lankan take-out.

There are dozens of take-outs specializing on Sri Lankan/Indian (to be specific: northern Sri Lankan) food in and around Toronto.
One take-out I like is the Veerar Take-Out, on Sheppard, near Markham. It is located next to a Tamil convenient store.
One of the first advantages of the Veerar Take-Out is that they give you a choice of having the rice and curry put together in the Styrofoam box, or the dishes separated in tiny Styrofoam cups and the rice in the box. The Sri lankan take-outs specialize in showing off the many number of dishes they have, and I find that the uniqueness of the dishes are lost when they are lumped together in one box.
The extra cups cost a dollar more, but it is worth.
The second, and perhaps the important, advantage is that Veerar is one of the few take-outs that goes beyond the usual, and easy-to-make dishes. For example, some take-outs may boast of eight dishes, but they might have a potato curry, potato with green peas curry and green peas curry.
Veerar’s dishes are different. For example, I had a spicy curry of drumsticks (this is not chicken drumstick. it is a long, stick like vegetable with a thick skin inside which there is flesh and seeds. For more, see this Wikipedia entry), the ubiquitous dhal curry, a dish made out of deep-fried bitter gourd mixed with onions, green chillies and coconut flakes with a dash of lime juice which gave it a distinct sourness, a fry made out of banana blossom, and a yellow cassava curry. Of course, no vegetarian meal is complete without papadam and deep fried curd-chiilies (this is green chillies soaked/boiled in curd, then hot dried and deep fried). Of course, there is also rasam, a kind of a soup made out of coriander, fennel, cumin, black pepper, red chillies and tamarind.
This is usually home-cooking. It is one of those meals that makes me salivate while driving.