Two - Two Event Entries

During my MBA days in GIM ( Goa Institute of Management), we had a choice of two canteens/cafeteria for our food inside the campus...my friends and i preferred one of them over the other for obvious reasons such as tastier food and more varieties....but whenever we saw dal makhani on the menu board in the less favourite canteen, that meant we were to have our lunch/dinner there, as one of my friends was crazy about that...We also stocked up on "ready to eat" packages and dal tadka and dal makhani was always part of the deal :) All of us also got back various pickles whenever we came back from holidays and my roommate had packets of different varieties of Khakhra...we somehow made sure that we always had good food to eat..and made it even better with roof top dinners on the terrace!!! oohh...i sooo miss those days!! :(

Any kind of dal is something i turn to, whenever i want to have something simple yet tasty and hearty...i got this really good Dal Makhani recipe from one of Tarla Dalals cookbook ( which sadly got left behind in india) and last week, i wanted the exact same recipe...i tried looking up in Tarla Dalal's website but all of the Dal Makhani recipes given there were for paid members...n then i found one of the free recipes..but it was a jain recipe...it pretty much looked like the original recipe from the book i had..so i decided to twist it a little and added onions and garlic to it... and to my great delight, it turned out to be just as great as the one i made before!! :)

Ingredients:

1 cup urad dal ( i used whole moong dal here, as i like that better than urad dal...so may be that does not make this an authentic dal makhani.. i cooked the dal in the MW, by microwaving the dal with enough water at high power for about 30 mins)
1/2 can kidney beans
2 green chillies
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 onion, chopped
1/2 tsp ginger garlic paste
1 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp garam masala powder
1 cup tomato puree ( i used about 3 tbsps of tomato paste mixed with water. I find that the tomato paste gives a more dense flavour as compared to puree)
1/2 cup heavy cream
salt to taste

Heat oil in a skillet and add cumin seeds. When they crackle, add the onions and ginger garlic paste. Add the green chillies and all the masala. Saute for a few minutes and add the tomato puree. Let it cook for a while and then add the dal and the kidney beans ( mash both the dal and the kidney beans well before adding them). Add salt and the cream and let it stay on the stove top to soak in all the masala and its ready to be served!!!

This goes out to Susan's My Legume Love Affair - An Event



And these lovely spices on my spice rack, go to Pooja of My Creative Ideas for her Theme of the week - Orange, White and Green , celebrating India's Republic Day..

Tricolour Spices!!