Bengali cholar dal (split pea soup with spices & coconut)
Cholar Dal is a traditional Bengali recipe of chana dal or split Bengal gram cooked with coconut and whole spices. It is warm, comforting and a little sweet, so it pairs beautifully with non-acidic side dishes such as aloo gobi mutter.
Recipe taken from Vegan Richa's Indian Kitchen cookbook.
Ingredients
- Dal
- 190g yellow split peas
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp sugar
- Tempering
- 2 tsp coconut oil (9g)
- 25g large coconut flakes
- 1//2 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 2 cardamom pods, slightly bruised
- 2 bay leaves
- 3 cloves
- 1/2 tsp chili flakes
- 1 tsp ginger paste
- 22g cashews, roughly chopped
- 25g raisins
Instructions
- Dal
- Soak the split peas for > 4h.
- Drain them, and put them in a saucepan, cover with water, and bring to a boil.
- Cook until split peas come undone, then add tumeric, sugar and salt.
- Cook for another ~5-10 min. Turn off heat.
- Tempering
- Heat up oil in a pan over medium heat.
- Fry all ingredients together until the coconut flakes turn a little golden. Make sure not to burn the tempering.
- Pour the tempering on top of the dal, and mix quickly.
- Serve the dal with a nice rice dish, or with homemade naans.