Onyo Cholar Dal -- Chana Dal with Onion & Garlic

My Mom makes one hundred and fifty different kinds of dals. Actually that is an understatement. Frankly I do not know how many kinds she makes.

Every time she cooks a dal, she uses a different something as phoron, adds an onion here, removes a garlic there and thus creates a new end product. A product which will look maybe similar to what is familiar but you take a spoonful and voila there is a whole different thing going on. There is this different layers of taste engulfing you, nothing that you expected because your mind is pre-programmed to "what it should taste like".

Like say for Masoor Dal. We always use either PaanchPhoron or Kalonji as phoron for a Masoor Dal. Sometimes an onion is added sometimes not. This much I can take. But my Mom goes ahead and does a phoron of methi seeds and heeng. Total unknown flavors in the same Dal.It is like Nirupa Roy in jeans or at least a halter neck blouse.

Sometimes you accept and move on, sometimes you are in love with this new avtaar of the same Dal and on some days when all you want is comfort you say "Mujhe meri Dal wapas do".

Since she makes so many different kinds, all I do when she is here is eat and never ask a question other than "Ki phoron dile ?(What tempering did you give?)" and that too out of natural human curiosity. Most of the time I do not even retain the information.

So, the other day when my friend N asked me a recipe for Cholar Dal with Garlic & onion, I was shocked. Yes, not "mildly surprised" but shocked. There was only one kind of Cholar Dal I knew, a shuddha niramish one, which I cooked maybe twice in a year and I could swear that it had nary a whiff of garlic or onion for that matter. Heck, I thought Cholar Dal HAS to be totally niramish, no onion, no garlic.

"But your Mom makes it", N said. "She made it for Big Sis's 5th birthday and it tasted like the Cholar Dal at weddings. She said she had added a little garlic and onion".

It has been 2 years since the birthday and more than 10 since any wedding and I did not remember anything, not any dal for sure.

"Ask her, get the recipe", N said, an urgency in her voice which made me call my Mom 4 days later.

"What is that Cholar Dal you make with onion and garlic which N loved. Give me the recipe", I hollered.

"Garlic,...garlic ?? Onion, I did add but did I add Garlic ?", my Mom asked.

Really now. How was I supposed to know. Here there was someone who had ate the dal two years back saying it had garlic. Here was my Mom, who in the two years since had probably made multiple variations of the same Dal and tripping over the garlic part of it.

So she gave me a recipe with onion et al but no garlic.

10 minutes later she called, spending precious bytes over optical fibers laid below oceans suggesting that I put a tiny clove of garlic finely minced.

Now if you are not a Bengali you might get confused over all this discussion about one tiny clove of Garlic. For you it probably has no significance in the greater scheme of matters. But for us, putting Garlic in Cholar Dal is a big thing. You need a certain braveness of heart to do that, to step over all those niramish dal cooked in the Bong Kitchen for centuries and go and put something like Allium sativum and mess up the balance in the Universe.

But I did just that. A tiny clove, the smallest in the huge bulbs I get here. It didn't make a whole lot of difference. The Cholar Dal tasted beautiful, better than the usual one but I could barely smell the garlic in there. Really, you need to increase that a bit if you want a spicier version. For us this worked best and I will probably be making this more often than the standard one.

N said, it wasn't exactly like my Mom's, about 2 notches below. But isn't that how it is always ?


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Cholar Dal with Garlic and Onion

Serves 6 adults. Increase onion, and chili for a more spicier version. This one suits our taste.

Wash 1 & 1/2 cup of Cholar Dal/Chana Dal in water.

Pressure Cook 1&1/2 cup of Chana Dal/Cholar Dal with
almost 3 cups of water,
1/4 tsp of turmeric
and little salt
for 7-8 minutes after steam has built up in the cooker or say about 10-12 mins on the whole. The lentils should be soft and cooked but remain separate by this time, if not you need to cook more.

Heat 1 tbsp of Oil + 1 tsp Ghee in a Kadhai or in a soup pot. Note: Ghee works best for this dal, if you don't want to use ghee as the cooking medium, add half a tsp towards the end for flavor.

Temper the oil with
1 small bay leaf,
4 green cardamom/elaichi,
4 clove,
1" thin stick of cinnamon
and 2 dry red chili

When the spices pop add
1/3 cup of very finely chopped onion,
1 small clove of garlic minced
Fry till onion is slightly brown at the edges.

Make a puree of
1 small tomato (I used 2 small peeled tomatoes from a can).
1" ginger peeled and chopped,
1 hot green chili(more if you want a hot & happening Dal)
Add this puree to the Kadhai and fry till oil separates from the masala.

Add a pinch of Asafoetida/Hing

Drain water from the cooked chana dal. Reserve the dal water for use later. Add the cooked dal gradually to the kadhai and fry the dal for 3-4 minutes

Add the reserved dal water + some more(in all add about 1 cup water). Add salt to taste. Bengali Dals are a little on the sweet side, so add about 1/4-1/2tsp of sugar

Let the dal come to a boil. Add little more water if you think the Dal is too thick for you.

Add 1/2 tsp of ghee if you have not used ghee for cooking. Taste and adjust for seasonings. Serve with white rice or hot puffed puris.