Hi, I'm Anjum Anand and today I'm going to cook the quickest ever Tarka Dal
It's amazing for a midweek supper, really quick and easy and you can eat it with
Indian breads or some rice as a side dish, as a main course dish
Its just a really beautiful, wholesome kind of cornerstone of Indian food
So lentil curry starts with lentils, so in they go into our pan
and you just leave that to come up to the boil
and then gently or even vaguely vigorously simmer away
Whilst that's happening we'll cut all the bits for the Tarka
So I'm just going to chop this up, put in a little bit of oil, about a tablespoon
and a couple of tablespoons of butter. You can add less if you want to
but Dal and butter just works really work well together
and at this stage we can add some tumeric into your lentils
Half a teaspoon's worth and a little bit of salt
In go about just under a teaspoon of cumin seeds
Those should start sizzling immediately
Once those darken a bit and you can start smelling the cumin you just go straight in with your onion
Alright garlic is the next ingredient to go in, so let's prepare our garlic while the onion's cooking
After let's check on the onions
So you can see that they're slightly sweating and browning
The more you brown them the more caramelised they get, so depending on what you're cooking
you might just want them to be just soft and sweet or slightly sweeter and more caramely
What I like is just when the sides start to colour, is to take it to the next level and add the next ingredient
So i might leave that for another minute while I chop my tomatoes
Let's have a look at our onions, they're a little bit golden
and they'll be beautiful. So I'm going to go in with my garlic
So thats about five good sized cloves of garlic
and at this stage actually I'm going to add a little bit of salt
because salt draws the moisture out of garlic and onions, and it just helps them cook better
When it just starts to colour you need to get in with the next ingredient because you don't want it to burn
Burnt garlic is really bitter
Our garlic is done, it has a lovely sweet smell
So in with our couple of last remaining spices
Coriander powder, I'll put in a couple of tablespoons of that
and I'll put in some chilly flakes and its good for the pan not to be too hot when you put in powder spices
Because they burn quite easily
If your pan is hot just add a little splash of water with it
and it will just cool the pan down, so giving that just 10 seconds or so
and then in with our tomatoes
So once those tomatoes really soften and they almost become a paste with the onions
Then its ready. You can see they've become really really soft in the pan
They've mixed with the onions and all the spices
So we can take that off the heat, maybe bring the lentils here
This is perfect for me, it's not too thin and watery
but it's not too thick either so in this goes
Just put all of that in there and we just let it cook for another four to five minutes
just for all the flavours to amalgamate
So to finish it off we're just going to chop some coriander
I like using the storks and the leaves because the storks have a lovely flavour and crunch
I normally like a little bit of lemon in this curry, so in that goes
I'm going to add in some coriander
Just as a final texture and crunchy lovely flavour I like to add these crispy onions
A little bit of yoghurt for a bit of added creaminess
And there you have it, the quickest tastiest Tarka Dal ever!