Name: Weeknight Tarka Dal
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 25 min
Total time: 35 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Indian
Ingredients: For the dal:; 250g split red lentils (masoor dal), rinsed until the water runs clear; 1 litre water; 1 tsp ground turmeric; 1 green chilli, slit lengthways; 1 tsp fine sea salt, plus more to taste; For the tarka:; 3 tbsp ghee, or vegetable oil; 1 tsp cumin seeds; 4-6 garlic cloves, thinly sliced; 2 dried red chillies, broken in half; ½ tsp Kashmiri chilli powder, for colour more than heat; To finish:; Juice of 1 lemon; A generous handful of coriander leaves, roughly chopped

Method

9 steps

Cook the lentils

Put the rinsed lentils, water, turmeric and slit green chilli in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat, then immediately turn it down to a bare simmer.
Skim off the greyish foam that rises in the first few minutes and discard it. This is the single thing that separates clean-tasting dal from muddy dal.
Simmer uncovered, stirring every five minutes or so, until the lentils have completely lost their shape and the dal is the consistency of double cream. Add a splash of hot water if it tightens too much.
Timer: 25 minutes
25 minutes remaining
Stir in the salt. Taste and adjust — under-salted dal tastes flat no matter how good the tarka is.

Make the tarka

Heat the ghee in a small frying pan over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Add the cumin seeds and wait for them to crackle and darken by a shade.
Timer: 40 seconds
40 seconds remaining
Add the sliced garlic and dried chillies. Swirl the pan constantly and watch it closely: you want the garlic pale gold, not brown. Take it off the heat while it is still lighter than you think it should be, because it keeps cooking in the hot fat.
Timer: 1 minute
1 minute remaining
Off the heat, stir in the Kashmiri chilli powder. It will bloom instantly in the residual heat and turn the fat deep red.

Bring it together

Pour the tarka over the dal at the table so everyone hears it hiss. Stir it through, add the lemon juice and scatter over the coriander.
Serve with rice or hot chapatis. It thickens considerably as it cools, so loosen leftovers with hot water rather than more salt.

Equipment

Large heavy-based saucepan
Small frying pan for the tarka

Notes from testing

This is the thing I cook when I have not planned dinner. Red lentils need no soaking and collapse into themselves in about twenty-five minutes, which is roughly the length of one phone call. The only technique that matters is the tarka: get the ghee properly hot, let the cumin seeds crackle, and pull it off the heat the moment the garlic turns gold. Take it too far and the garlic turns bitter and there is no rescuing it.

Nutrition

Estimated, per serving

Estimated nutrition information per serving
Energy	384 kcal
Fat	11.6 g
of which saturates	6.1 g
Carbohydrate	51.4 g
of which sugars	2.8 g
Fibre	9.3 g
Protein	18.2 g
Sodium	612 mg

Nutrition is an automated estimate calculated from USDA FoodData Central and UK CoFID data. It is not a substitute for professional dietary advice and should not be relied on for medical purposes. Source: USDA FoodData Central.