How to cook chana dal

General directions for cooking chana dal
– just plain chana dal to use in recipes that call for cooked chana dal

This recipe is for 3 cups of uncooked (about 8 cups of cooked) chana dal. I like to make a lot of chana dal at one time and freeze what I don’t use right away.

Ingredients
3 cups uncooked chana dal
cold tap water (for rinsing)
6 cups cold tap water (for cooking)
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda (sodium bircarbonate)

Step I: Inspect and pick over chana dal
Inspect the chana dal for foreign matter. Discard foreign matter and grey shriveled-looking chana dal, if any.

Step II: Rinse chana dal
Place the chana dal into a strainer (or small collander) and place the strainer into a large bowl. Fill the bowl with cold tap water and, using your hands, mix the dal around; discard the rinse water. Repeat this rinsing process 3 or 4 times until the water runs almost clear. Discard the final rinse water out of the bowl.

Rinsed and drained chana dal – ready for cooking

Step III: Soak chana dal
Place the strainer with the rinsed chana dal back into the empty bowl and add cold tap water to cover the chana dal with 2 – 3 inches of water. Let the chana dal soak at room temperature for 2 to 3 hours.  Then remove the strainer with the dal from the water in which it was soaking. Discard the water.

Step IV: Add water, baking soda and cook
Place the chana dal that has been soaked and drained into a large pot, and add 6 cups of cold tap water to the pot. Add the baking soda and mix it around with a large spoon.

Bring the water to a boil and then turn the heat down to gentle boil (almost a simmer). Gently boil for 10-12 minutes, uncovered, or until the chana dal is cooked through but not mushy.  Note: While cooking the chana dal and water mixture will froth quite a bit, but that’s OK.

Chana dal cooking – lots of froth at first

Chana dal cooking – less froth later

Yeild: About 8 cups cooked chana dal and some liquid you can use in cooking or making soups.

Storage: Store your cooked chana dal in your refrigerator or in freezer.

Why baking soda?
Adding some baking soda when cooking beans or dal (split beans) is traditional in many South Asian recipes. It helps soften the bean/dal in less time than it would take without the baking soda. In my experience, the baking soda cuts the cooking time in half.

Recipes for chana dal: 

Chana dal purée for use in lots of different recipes. I love this recipe and since posting it to my blog, I’ve used it over and over. These days I freeze the chana dal puree in silicon muffin pans and then pop the frozen muffins out and into a freezer bag. Very nice way to add a little chana dal to this or that recipe, as needed!

My Pinterest collection of dal recipes — includes some with chana dal. And you can adapt the others to include chana dal!

Enjoy and be healthy!
~Leni

Quick and Delicious Dal

Tandoor Chef’s Dal Rajasthani

I had company coming for dinner the other night, but had no time to cook the chana dal recipe that I had planned to make. So I simply combined a few packages of Tandoori Chef’s Dal Rajasthani with some plain cooked chana dal. Delicious!

Plain Cooked Chana Dal

At the table, each person topped his or her dal with chopped fresh onion, chopped fresh tomato, and chopped fresh cilantro. We also passed the Cilantro  Chutney for those who wanted a bit more spiciness.

Tandoor Chef’s Channa Dal (available at Whole
Foods and some supermarkets in the frozen food section)

Ingredient list:
water, split lentils (moong, toor, channa, urad & masoor dals), onions, diced tomatoes (tomatoes, tomato juice, salt, citric acid, calcium chloride), canola oil, spices, tomato pasts (tomato past, water, salt, citric acid), garlic, sea salt, turmeric, curry leaves, fenugreek leaves, oleoresin of paprika, bay leaves.

Nutrition information, per 5 ounce serving:
6 grams fat
0 grams saturated fat
0 mg cholesterol
470 mg sodium
14 g carbohydrate
5 g protein

And…after you mix the Tandoor Chef dal with your plain cooked chana dal, you end up with a delicious dal that’s lower in fat and sodium and has a lower glycemic index than Tandoor Chef’s Rajasthani Dal. So easy! So delicious! And so nutritious!

Enjoy and be healthy!
~Leni

Dal Soup

Links and minor content matters updated on January 8, 2024.

Dal Soup

This Dal Soup recipe was inspired by the recipe for Red Lentil Soup from the Global Stomach (Sorry, the link to this recipe is no longer available). But the Global Stomach’s recipe calls for curry leaves which is not a common ingredient. So I came up with a recipe for which the curry leaves are optional (but recommended).

According, to Julie Sahini, one of my favorite experts on Indian cooking, curry leaves are “this decade’s lemon grass.” You can find packages of fresh fragrant curry leaves on tender stems in the fruit and vegetable section of Asian markets. And, some of my green-thumb Indian friends even grow curry leaf plants in pots — outdoors in the summer and indoors in the winter.

While you can make this Dal Soup without curry leaves and it will taste great, if you make it with curry leaves, I think you will like it even more. Just throw about 20 leaves into the pot along with the onions. You do not have to remove the curry leaves from the soup.

For some surprising (to me, anyway) info on the nutrition of curry leaves, see 9 Benefits and Uses of Curry Leaves.

When you buy fresh curry leaves (the only kind I would recommend you get) at an Asian market or Indian store, you get quite a lot of them. So I freeze the extra curry leaves: Just remove them from their stems, rinse them, let them air dry and then put in ziplock freezer bag, removing as much air as you can. Also, to lock in their freshness, might be good to coat them lightly with oil before freezing. I plan to try that.

Note: The links in the ingredient list below will take you to Monamifood blog posts that give details about some of the health benefits of a particular ingredient and also, when applicable, how cooking and storage affect the bio-active components of that ingredient.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 large onions, chopped
6 cloves garlic, chopped
4  medium tomatoes, chopped or 1, 15-ounce can diced organic tomatoes
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 Serrano chiles, chopped
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
4 cups vegetable broth
8 cups water
20 curry leaves (optional)
2 cups masoor dal (split red lentils), picked over and rinsed until the water runs clear
° Split red lentils can be found in Asian supermarkets, Indo/Pak grocery stores, or Whole Foods (bulk section).

To pass at the table

Foods to pass at the table

• coconut milk (light coconut milk is preferable)
  • Just a tablespoon or so per serving is plenty. It adds creaminess but not a lot of fat.
• lemon wedges
• crushed red pepper (the kind you sprinkle on pizza)
• chopped fresh coriander

And if you have some steamed or lightly cooked greens on hand…just pass the these too, too! Ladle this soup over the cooked leafy  for a great beans and greens dish! (Hey, this is my favorite lunch these days!)

Directions for preparing this Dal Soup
Add the olive oil to a large stock pot and heat over medium heat until the oil is hot but not smoking. When the oil is hot, add the onion and sauté until the onion is translucent. Add the garlic and sauté the the onion/garlic mixture for about 30 seconds. Add the tomato, tomato paste, curry powder, cumin, coriander, turmeric, black pepper, chile, salt and sauté for another few minutes.

Add the vegetable broth, water, curry leaves (if using), and masoor dal (red split peas), and continue cooking the mixture over medium heat. When the mixture comes to a simmer, partially cover the pot and reduce the heat to medium-low. Let the mixture simmer gently for about 15 minutes, until the lentils are tender.

To thicken the soup after it’s cooked: Use an immersion blender (or a regular blender) to puree some of the soup, and then mix the pureed soup with the non-pureed soup.

At the table, pass the coconut milk, lemon, red pepper, and cilantro, as well as the steamed greens, if desired.

P.S. Asian supermarkets in the Northern Virginia area
Planning a trip to one of the Asian supermarkets in the Northern VA area? Check out Super H, Hanaro, Lotte and Grand Mart. Going to any of these stores for the first time, is quite an adventure!
Enjoy and be healthy!

~Leni