Thursday, 11 June 2009

Spinach Dal/Palak Dal

I remember having this curry once long long back when my mom prepared it. I dont remember her preparing it after that. I am definite she must have forgotten that wonderful recipe. This is such an easy and healthy dish that I planned to include it in my 'lazy day' recipes. Since it is quite mild even the kids will love it, my little toddler do! Hmm, well I was doing some research on this particular dish and found out that many of them added little chilli powder to it. Im happy with this recipe, but, next time I make it, I would try by adding little chilli powder along with turmeric and update you guys. Here is the recipe that I got from Lakshmi Nair's Show.
Update: I made palak dal Yesterday again, and added 1 tsp of kashmiri chilli powder along with turmeric. It gave a different colour to the curry. A slight orange colour rather than the mild yellow, I would say and I also reduced number of green chillies to 1 instead of having three of them. I dint find any difference in the taste, but if you like the light orange colour to the curry, you can add Chilli powder. Else just leave it.

Ingredients:
1 cup Moog dal (Spil yellow gram/lentils)(ചെറുപയര്‍ പരിപ്പ്)
250g Frozen spinach or fresh - chopped
3 large cloves Garlic
3 green chillies, slit legthwise
2 small onions chopped (1 cup)
2 medium tomato chopped ( around 1 cup)
1/2 cup thick coconut milk
2 tbs oil
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
3/4 tsp Cumin seeds

Preparation:
1. Wash dal and Pressure cook them along with 3 cups of water until soft. Mash them and keep them aside.
2. Heat a saucepan, add oil. When hot, splutter cumin seeds. Quickly add chopped garlic, onion and green chillies and saute until the onion become soft and starts turning golden.
3. Add turmeric powder and chopped tomatoes. Cover and cook until tomatoes go soft.
4. Add the cooked dal and spinach and 1/2 cup of water if needed and cook for 15 minutes until the spinach is cooked.
5. Add coconut milk and salt and just bring to boil. Serve hot with rice, chappathi etc..


This recipe goes for the 'My Legume Love Affair'event Hosted by Annasara which is started by Susan.












This recipe also goes for the CFK event Hosted by Pavani of cook’s hideout started by Sharmi of neivedyam .