Nepal / Main
Dal bhat
Lentil soup with rice and a vegetable tarkari. Nepal's everyday meal, eaten twice a day for a lifetime.
Ingredients
- Yellow lentils250 g
- Rice400 g
- Turmeric1 tsp
- Ghee3 tbsp
- Ajwain seeds1 tsp
- Cumin seeds1 tsp
- Dried chillies2
- Garlic4 cloves
- Potato and cauliflower500 g
- Onion1
- Spinach or mustard greens200 g
- Saltto taste
Quantities are auto-calculated from the original recipe as a guide. Items without numbers (e.g. “to taste”) are not changed.
Method 6 steps
Rinse the lentils and boil them in a litre of water with the turmeric for thirty minutes, until they collapse completely. Skim for the first five minutes.
Start the rice. While it cooks, fry the onion, add the potato and cauliflower with a little turmeric and water, and cook fifteen minutes: that is the tarkari.
Fry the greens with garlic over a high flame for two minutes; they should stay bright.
For the jhaneko, heat the ghee and throw in the ajwain, cumin, dried chilli and garlic, frying twenty seconds to the smell.
Pour the sizzling spiced fat straight into the dal — it hisses. Stir, season and serve at once.
Build the plate: rice in the middle, dal in a small bowl, tarkari and greens around it, achar at the edge.
