Dal fry/ Restaurant style dal fry recipe

Dal fry is a great side dish for plain rice, mild pulaos or even for rotis and naan.  Initially i followed many recipes and hooked to this  recipe finally. Its tastes similar to dal fry which is served in hotels.

    Many people confuses between dal fry and dal tadka. Here is the difference. 

Dal fry : Dal is cooked first until it gets soft then onion, tomato and spices are sauted in ghee/oil and added to the dal. Then simmered and served.

Dal tadka: Dal is cooked along with onion, tomato and spices until soft and spices like mustard, cumin seeds, redchillies, hing , etc are tempered. This tempering is added to the dal finally and served.

Here is the recipe...

Ingredients:

Thoor dal - 1/4 cup

Moong dal- 1/4 cup

Water - 1.5 cups for pressure cooking dal  + 1 cup or as needed  for adding to cooked dal

Onion - 1 no (medium sized)

Tomato - 1 no (medium sized)

Green chillies - 4 -6 nos

Ginger - 1 inch piece

Garlic -  4 nos

Turmeric powder - 1/2tsp

Red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp

Garam masala powder - 1/4 tsp

Hing - 1/4 tsp

Mustard - 1 tsp

Cumin seeds - 1 tsp

Red chillies - 2- 3 nos 

Curry leaves - 1 sprig

Coriander leaves - 2 tbsp(finely chopped)

Lemon juice - 1 tsp (optional)

Oil - 1- 2 tbsp

Salt - as needed

Method:

1. Take thoor dal , moong dal and 1.5 cups of water. Pressure cook it along with green chillies till dal is cooked soft.

2. In a mixer jar grind ginger and garlic little coarsely.

3.  In a pan , heat oil , add mustard seeds. When it pops add cumin seeds . Let it crackles. Then add Whole redchillies and onion fry them till onion turns transparent.

4. Add ginger garlic paste . Fry it till raw smell of ginger and garlic leaves. Now add chopped tomatoes. 

5. Fry the tomato till it shrinks in volume. Then add turmeric powder , salt and red chilli powder. Fry them till oil seperates.

6. Mash the dal with potato masher or with ladle . Add the mashed dal  to the onion tomato mixture.

7. Now add 1 cup of water and stir well. Then add hing and garam masala and give a quick boil .

8. Now add chopped coriander leaves  and tsp of lemon juice (optional) and stir well. Switch off the stove and serve hot.

Now our dal fry is ready...

Top with some dollops of ghee while serving :)

Notes:

• You can use thoor dal alone , instead of using  combined dal such as moongdal  + thoordal.
  
• You can  increase / decrease  the amount of green chillies depending upon the spice level of your chili.
  
• The consistency of dal fry is neither thick nor thin . It should be in between two. So adjust the water accordingly.
  
• Dal fry thickens with time.  So switch it off accordingly.
  
•  while reheating , you add necessary water and give a boil.
  
• You can also chop the ginger and add instead of grinding it.
  
• You can also add kasthuri methi at the final stage of dalfry for nice aroma.