**The Art of Making Dal with Garam Masala**

When it comes to making Dal, a staple Indian dish, there are many factors to consider. One of the most important things is the amount of garam masala used. The intensity of garam masala can vary depending on the blend, so it's essential to use a moderate amount. I recommend using between 1/4 teaspoon and 1/2 teaspoon of garam masala in this recipe.

**The Role of Garam Masala**

Garam masala is not just a spice, but a finishing touch that adds depth and warmth to the dish. It's similar to paprika, but with a more complex flavor profile. When used sparingly, it can elevate the entire dish. In my family, we've grown accustomed to a medium consistency of Dal, so I tend to err on the side of caution when it comes to the seasoning.

**Adding Lemon and Salt**

When adding lemon juice, remember that it's all about taste. A half lemon is equivalent to about 1 1/2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice. You can adjust this to your liking, but start with a small amount and add more as needed. When it comes to salt, use a moderate amount, around 1/3 teaspoon. Salt enhances the flavors in the dish and brings out the natural sweetness of the ingredients.

**The Importance of Salt**

Salt is crucial in Indian cooking, and using high-quality salt makes all the difference. I prefer to use sea salt or Himalayan pink salt for its unique flavor profile. The key is to find a balance between salty and sweet. If you're unsure, start with a small amount and adjust as needed.

**Thka: A Key Component of South Asian Cooking**

Thka, also known as ghee, is an infused oil that adds depth and richness to dishes. It's made by heating oil or ghee to high temperatures, which creates a nutty flavor. To make thka, use a small pan with a low surface area, as this allows the heat to penetrate quickly. I recommend using cumin seeds, coriander, and chili peppers to create a flavorful thka.

**Creating Thka**

To create thka, start by heating oil or ghee in a small pan over medium-high heat. Once the oil is hot, add a pinch of cumin seeds and let them dance for a few seconds. This indicates that they're ready to be added to the rest of the spices. Add the remaining spices, including Kashmir chili peppers, and stir well. Now, pour the thka over the Dal, making sure it's evenly distributed.

**The Art of Eating Dal**

In Indian culture, eating Dal is a sensory experience. It's common to eat it with your hands, which allows for a more intimate connection with the food. I recommend pairing Dal with basmati rice and a dollop of yogurt or a crispy popper (potato chip). The key is to balance flavors and textures in each bite.

**The Comfort of Eating with Your Hands**

Eating with your hands can be comforting, especially when it comes to Indian cuisine. It's a tactile experience that engages multiple senses. By eating with your hands, you're able to fully appreciate the flavors and textures of the dish. In my family, we've grown accustomed to this method of eating, and I highly recommend giving it a try.

**Buying Achars and Shirts from Brooklyn Deli**

If you're interested in learning more about what I do at Brooklyn Deli, be sure to check out our online store. We offer a variety of artisanal achars (Indian condiments) and unique shirts that showcase my culinary style. By buying from us, you'll not only get high-quality products but also support small businesses and food enthusiasts like myself.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: endahah is quintessential comfort food of South Asia but there's so many different varieties of how dah can be prepared Indian cooking is hyper Regional my parents are from two different parts of India so my father is from North India and this recipe is I'd say more North Indian the one thing that's awesome about it is that it's like a democratizing food it's super cheap it's really wholesome and nutritious and it tastes really good and it's easy to make hi my name is chra agal I'm the founder at Brooklyn Deli and the author of vibrant India Dal thka is a dish of creamy lentils that's topped with thka and thka is a flavored ghee which is infused with the flavor of different spices there's a variety of different lentils you could use for this dish but this one I love because it Cooks in like 25 minutes so these are lentils right so they are the split form of whole mour and whole mour has a brown skin so if you find that um whole mour you could also cook this recipe I like to try and rinse it until the water becomes a little bit more clear so that's what you're going for to begin we're just going to cut some onion I've used leaks before you can use spring onion we can have some ginger in here as well I sometimes just peel it with this spoon I have this Ginger grater that I like or myom mom uses this one I don't know I I really is this a ginger grater I don't know she just calls it a ginger grater but what like now you're just going to chop up a couple garlic clothes the preparation of doll goes back to like 800 or 300 BC today Dal in Hindi means lentil or it also can mean the cooked dish that uses lentil sometimes even beans too we're going to start with about 2 tbspoon of oil and the heat is about at medium high then we're just going to add in our onions in here you can fry the onions until they're translucent but if you have a little bit more time you can kind of brown them a little bit because it it adds like a nice depth of flavor so now I'm going to add in the ginger and the garlic and then we're just going to fry that just for a little bit so this is a spiced Tiffin or Duba every family in South Asia has a spice tiffer Duba that they use and it has their most used spices in it I'm just adding in some turmeric and some coriander powder and you just want to mix that up really well and just get the spices toasted and then we can add the drained doll in at this point and then I usually just Stir It Up a little bit and then add water so I bring it to a boil and then you're going to cook it at like a fast simmer for about 25 to 30 minutes so you want to get it to this creamy type of texture here traditionally a lot of people I feel like in India may use a pressure cooker so they'll put the lentils or the doll in it and it becomes just like this creamy mass in a way so you're going to get a different type of texture when you're cooking it on the stove but you may just have to cook it a little bit longer I have garam masala here garam masala I feel like is another spice that varies in intensity so depending on your blend I would say use a/4 teaspoon to a/ teaspoon in this recipe gar Masala is kind of like a finishing spice now I can add some lemon I mean this is also to taste but a half lemon is about like 1 and 1/2 tablespoons or so the most important part is the salt depending on what type of salt you're using I I usually do like one and 34s or so that's the other thing about doll I feel like every household will make it you know more soupy or more thick and so I feel like I grew up eating it kind of medium in a sense so that that's what I feel like this is kind of medium also this recipe is so forgiving that if you feel like it's gotten too thick just add a little bit more water um it's not a big deal and then you can just boil it off if you think it's too watery too so now we're going to top it with a thka and a thka is I'd say it's at the the heart of South Asian cooking it's an infused oil or ghee that has the flavor of different spices and and it could also um be flavored with different aromatics like onion or Ginger or garlic you're really adding a ton of flavor when you're doing you're using this technique this is actually a thka pan you can use any type of small pan that you have whatever you use for a thka pan it should have a small surface area because you're heating your oil or your ghee um to a high temp it all happens very very quickly and actually thka or thka means to crack back so what you'll see is sometimes if you're using an herb or something like and you put it into the hot fat it may have some type of moisture so that will kind of um add like a crackling noise this is ghee I'm going to put in about 2 tablespoons and we want the heat to be at like a medium high if you're vegan you can use an oil I think that when you're making a thka it's good to use kind of a mild flavor high heat oil usually what I do is I just put in one cumin seed and if it's dancing a little bit and bubbling then I know I can put in the rest I'm going to put in about a teaspoon of cumin seeds and then I'm going to put in just like a pinch of acatita acatita is a really special spice you either love it or hate it I feel like it's also sometimes called Devil's dung because it's that strong and now it's really going and then I'm going to put in our chili and then I'm going to put in a little bit of Kashmir chili until it gets nice and hot and now we're going to pour it on top of the salt another trick I do is to get all of the oil or the ghee out of the pan I sometimes will spoon back a little bit and just kind of like that helps to kind of clean out all the flavor that's in the pan I usually like to put a little bit of fresh cilantro on the top there you have Dal thka I want to show you how I eat it I think that eating Indian it's best when you actually eat it with your hand this is a bosoy rice and then we'll take some doll we'll put that on the top I like to add a little bit of achar achar means pickled or preserved in Hindi so this is a staple Indian condiment that um I make and then another part of eating rice and dah sometimes is that you have a crispy popper with it and in my family sometimes we didn't have poer so my my parents would actually get um potato chips I like either one I like to also have a little bit of yogurt on it and that kind of adds even more creaminess to it but it's maybe not as traditional I can't remember the age that you know I learned how to mix food with my hand but it definitely tastes so much better versus just eating it with a spoon the flavors just don't meld the same sometimes what I would do is I'll have like a piece of popper in my hand and then I'll I'll have like you know a bite of the the rice and uh doll and then you have a bite of Popp that's how I like it it's just like a very kind of comforting flavor for the recipe click below and if you want to learn more about what I do at Brooklyn Deli you can go to Brooklyn deli.com and buy my achars and then shirtdahah is quintessential comfort food of South Asia but there's so many different varieties of how dah can be prepared Indian cooking is hyper Regional my parents are from two different parts of India so my father is from North India and this recipe is I'd say more North Indian the one thing that's awesome about it is that it's like a democratizing food it's super cheap it's really wholesome and nutritious and it tastes really good and it's easy to make hi my name is chra agal I'm the founder at Brooklyn Deli and the author of vibrant India Dal thka is a dish of creamy lentils that's topped with thka and thka is a flavored ghee which is infused with the flavor of different spices there's a variety of different lentils you could use for this dish but this one I love because it Cooks in like 25 minutes so these are lentils right so they are the split form of whole mour and whole mour has a brown skin so if you find that um whole mour you could also cook this recipe I like to try and rinse it until the water becomes a little bit more clear so that's what you're going for to begin we're just going to cut some onion I've used leaks before you can use spring onion we can have some ginger in here as well I sometimes just peel it with this spoon I have this Ginger grater that I like or myom mom uses this one I don't know I I really is this a ginger grater I don't know she just calls it a ginger grater but what like now you're just going to chop up a couple garlic clothes the preparation of doll goes back to like 800 or 300 BC today Dal in Hindi means lentil or it also can mean the cooked dish that uses lentil sometimes even beans too we're going to start with about 2 tbspoon of oil and the heat is about at medium high then we're just going to add in our onions in here you can fry the onions until they're translucent but if you have a little bit more time you can kind of brown them a little bit because it it adds like a nice depth of flavor so now I'm going to add in the ginger and the garlic and then we're just going to fry that just for a little bit so this is a spiced Tiffin or Duba every family in South Asia has a spice tiffer Duba that they use and it has their most used spices in it I'm just adding in some turmeric and some coriander powder and you just want to mix that up really well and just get the spices toasted and then we can add the drained doll in at this point and then I usually just Stir It Up a little bit and then add water so I bring it to a boil and then you're going to cook it at like a fast simmer for about 25 to 30 minutes so you want to get it to this creamy type of texture here traditionally a lot of people I feel like in India may use a pressure cooker so they'll put the lentils or the doll in it and it becomes just like this creamy mass in a way so you're going to get a different type of texture when you're cooking it on the stove but you may just have to cook it a little bit longer I have garam masala here garam masala I feel like is another spice that varies in intensity so depending on your blend I would say use a/4 teaspoon to a/ teaspoon in this recipe gar Masala is kind of like a finishing spice now I can add some lemon I mean this is also to taste but a half lemon is about like 1 and 1/2 tablespoons or so the most important part is the salt depending on what type of salt you're using I I usually do like one and 34s or so that's the other thing about doll I feel like every household will make it you know more soupy or more thick and so I feel like I grew up eating it kind of medium in a sense so that that's what I feel like this is kind of medium also this recipe is so forgiving that if you feel like it's gotten too thick just add a little bit more water um it's not a big deal and then you can just boil it off if you think it's too watery too so now we're going to top it with a thka and a thka is I'd say it's at the the heart of South Asian cooking it's an infused oil or ghee that has the flavor of different spices and and it could also um be flavored with different aromatics like onion or Ginger or garlic you're really adding a ton of flavor when you're doing you're using this technique this is actually a thka pan you can use any type of small pan that you have whatever you use for a thka pan it should have a small surface area because you're heating your oil or your ghee um to a high temp it all happens very very quickly and actually thka or thka means to crack back so what you'll see is sometimes if you're using an herb or something like and you put it into the hot fat it may have some type of moisture so that will kind of um add like a crackling noise this is ghee I'm going to put in about 2 tablespoons and we want the heat to be at like a medium high if you're vegan you can use an oil I think that when you're making a thka it's good to use kind of a mild flavor high heat oil usually what I do is I just put in one cumin seed and if it's dancing a little bit and bubbling then I know I can put in the rest I'm going to put in about a teaspoon of cumin seeds and then I'm going to put in just like a pinch of acatita acatita is a really special spice you either love it or hate it I feel like it's also sometimes called Devil's dung because it's that strong and now it's really going and then I'm going to put in our chili and then I'm going to put in a little bit of Kashmir chili until it gets nice and hot and now we're going to pour it on top of the salt another trick I do is to get all of the oil or the ghee out of the pan I sometimes will spoon back a little bit and just kind of like that helps to kind of clean out all the flavor that's in the pan I usually like to put a little bit of fresh cilantro on the top there you have Dal thka I want to show you how I eat it I think that eating Indian it's best when you actually eat it with your hand this is a bosoy rice and then we'll take some doll we'll put that on the top I like to add a little bit of achar achar means pickled or preserved in Hindi so this is a staple Indian condiment that um I make and then another part of eating rice and dah sometimes is that you have a crispy popper with it and in my family sometimes we didn't have poer so my my parents would actually get um potato chips I like either one I like to also have a little bit of yogurt on it and that kind of adds even more creaminess to it but it's maybe not as traditional I can't remember the age that you know I learned how to mix food with my hand but it definitely tastes so much better versus just eating it with a spoon the flavors just don't meld the same sometimes what I would do is I'll have like a piece of popper in my hand and then I'll I'll have like you know a bite of the the rice and uh doll and then you have a bite of Popp that's how I like it it's just like a very kind of comforting flavor for the recipe click below and if you want to learn more about what I do at Brooklyn Deli you can go to Brooklyn deli.com and buy my achars and then shirt\n"