Good Food!

I recently had Dal Tarka for the first time at my favorite restaurant and I was blown away by how delicious and satisfying this simple dish can be. I came home determined to make my own.

Dal, made from any of a variety of pulses (dried beans or lentils), is a mainstay in South Asian vegetarian cooking. Dal Tarka is made by pouring Tarka over the Dal after it’s been cooked. I made my Dal from yellow split peas.

Tarka is more a method than a list of ingredients. Also called chaunk, bagar, popu and a several other names – Tarka is essentially whole spices fried briefly in oil or ghee to release the essential oils from the spices. The Tarka is then poured into the dal and voila! – Dal Tarka!

I used the Tarka spices from a recipe in my “Hare Krishna Book of Vegetarian Cooking” by Adiraja dasa. I also used unprocessed, organic peanut oil instead of ghee – so that the end result would be vegan. The peanut oil worked perfectly as a replacement providing the rich flavor that ghee gives – without the butter. The whole spices included:

• a couple of bay leaves
• a cinnamon stick broken in 1/2
• 1 1/2 t. turmeric
• 1 1/2 t. cumin seed
• 1 dried chile, crushed
• 1/4 t. asafetidda
• 2 t. crushed ginger

I squeezed half a lemon into the Tarka before pouring on the dal. Served with Basmati rice, coconut yogurt, cilantro and chutney, it was a meal in itself.