Sweet and sour split pea soup
This dal is a mouthful of contrasts, brought on by the addition of a bit of sugar and lemon juice. The flavour comes from curry leaves, and whole cumin and mustard seeds fried in oil. I like to make it spicy by adding chili flakes to the tempering.
Recipe taken from Vegan Richa's Indian Kitchen cookbook.
Ingredients
- Dal
- 190g yellow split peas, or toor dal
- 250g chopped tomatoes
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
- 10 curry leaves, fresh or frozen
- 5g ginger paste
- 25g roasted peanuts
- 10g raw sugar
- 3/4 tsp salt
- Tempering
- 1 tsp oil
- 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
- a generous pinch of asafetida
- 1/2 tsp dried chili flakes
- 10g lemon juice
Instructions
- Dal
- Soak the split peas for > 4h.
- Drain them, and put them in a saucepan with the tomatoes. Cover with water, and bring to a boil.
- Cook until split peas come undone, then add tumeric, curry leaves, ginger, roasted peanuts, sugar and salt.
- Cook for another ~5-10 min. Turn off heat.
- Tempering
- Heat up oil in a small pan.
- Fry the mustard seeds, asafetida, chili flakes for a few seconds.
- Turn off heat, add lemon juice, and stir.
- Pour the tempering on top of the dal, and mix quickly.
- Serve the dal with a nice rice dish. It is also delicious as a soup if you use enough water :)