How do I love masoor dal? Let me count the ways.
First, as the taste of childhood. Patla mushur dal, or thin masoor dal, turned up scalding hot on our Shillong table, day in and day out, unremarked and unsung. A thin, translucent, flowing thing, to be slurped up with rice and alu bhaja.
I think of my mother making it most mornings, like a musician at her riyaz. The kadhai fiery hot, almost shimmering. The mustard oil, smoking. In went a red chilli, a bay leaf and sliced onions, crackling and darkening in a minute. The boiled dal followed, roaring as it descended into that pool of heat and spice. Done right, Maa says, the shombhash, or tarka, would turn a pot of bland dal mush into a memory of comfort, alive with flavour – and impossible to recreate in lesser hands, no matter how many times I have been told the recipe.
In my husband’s North Indian home, I met another kind of masoor dal. It was not love at first sight. Why were its grains black and not the pretty orange-pink in my mother’s pantry? What was this unfamiliar taste of jeera and hing? Most scandalously, for someone used to Bengali three-course meals, if not five, how could you have only dal and chawal? But over the years, I have learnt to appreciate how easy and drama-free the sabut masoor dal makes the business of nourishment, and fell for its ghee-laden dense goodness – like we eventually do for the strong-silent types.
My favourite version of the dal is the one I discovered as a single woman, while surviving chilly winters with my friend in the cold apartments of Patparganj in East Delhi. It was fuss-free and stylish and new, just what I thought my away-from-home life ought to be. A cookbook I had picked up claimed the artist MF Husain loved to feed this to his guests. Voila, we called it the Husaini dal. It demands a little time – though not much effort.
On a lazy Sunday, put some music in the background, soak the red lentils in water and forget them for an hour. The hero of this dish is the tarka right at the beginning. Allow the jeera, crushed garlic pods and a slit green chilli to slide into the ghee. Take a moment to breathe in the fragrance. Add tomatoes, turmeric, red chilli powder and salt. Saute till the fat glistens. Add the dal and some water, not a lot. Cover it till the dal is cooked and near dry, almost to a jammy consistency.
I have left singlehood behind, but I find that this slow-cooked dal, rich with flavour, is still the star of our Sunday meals. Who knows, perhaps a few years down the line, when my daughter longs for a taste of home in strange cities, she might call, asking for the recipe of Husaini dal.
