1/21/2011

Dal soup

Ingredients 
1 tbsp Oil
1 tsp Cumin seeds
2 Medium onions, sliced
1/2 tsp Turmeric powder
1 cup Red lentils, washed
6 cups Water Salt to taste
several teaspoons of vegetable bouillon powder, to taste
1/4 tsp Cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp Ground black pepper
1 tbsp Lemon juice
12 tbsp Boiled white rice
Mint leaves, chopped for garnish (few sprigs)
Preparation 
1. Heat the oil over med-high; cook onions till they start to get transparent and add cumin. Cook for another couple of minutes.  2. Add the turmeric powder and lentils; fry 1 minute.  3. Add the water, salt, cayenne and black pepper; bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes or until the lentils are tender.  4.  Puree the soup.  5. Add lemon juice.
To serve, put 2 tbsp of rice in each bowl and pour the soup over the rice. Garnish with chopped fresh mint leaves.

GK's notes:  I didn't have whole cumin seeds, so I just used ground.  It seemed to work fine.  The original recipe talked about cooking the cumin till it changed color.  I've never seen ground cumin change color, so I took that part out...if you use the whole seeds, you're supposed to put them in with the onions and cook till the cumin seeds change color.  *shrug*
I didn't use mint leaves--didn't have any, didn't miss them.  I used Jasmine rice.  It was very good. 
This ended up tasting more or less like chicken soup with rice.  In fact, as I told my husband, if I hadn't made it myself, I wouldn't have believed there was no chicken in it.  It was delicious--everybody in the household loved it, and ate massive amounts of it for dinner.  =)

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