Cholar Dal

Durga Puja morning, or a wedding lunch, or a Sunday when people are coming. The dal is on the stove and someone is rolling luchi in the next room. The chana dal has been cooked so the grains are soft but still look like grains. Cinnamon, cardamom and clove have been through hot ghee. Raisins have gone in. It is sweet enough that you notice and not so sweet that it becomes a dessert, and the luchi arrives at the same moment or the whole thing is off.

Two fats, each doing something different. The coconut slivers are fried in wooden cold pressed coconut oil, pressed from copra in a slow ghaani, which doubles the coconut smell instead of cutting across it. Then Gir Cow's A2 Ghee goes in twice, once to bloom the whole spices and once off the heat at the end. Ours is bilona ghee from Gir cow milk, sweet and nutty rather than flat, and that final spoon is the first thing anyone notices.

The one thing that decides cholar dal is when you stop cooking it. The grains should crush between two fingers but still hold their shape. Soak it properly for two hours and then stop a minute early. Let it collapse into a paste and you have made a perfectly nice dal, but not this one.

How to make it

1. Rinse the soaked dal and drain it well. Pressure cook with 750 ml water, the turmeric and 1/2 tsp salt for 3 to 4 whistles, then let the pressure fall on its own. In an open pot it takes about 40 minutes. The grains should be soft enough to crush between two fingers but still look like grains.
2. Heat the coconut oil in a kadhai on low. Fry the coconut slivers for about 2 minutes, stirring the whole time, until they turn pale gold. Lift them out at once. Coconut goes from gold to burnt in seconds.
3. Add 1 tbsp ghee to the same pan. Put in the bay leaves, dried red chillies, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and cumin seeds. Give them 20 seconds until the kitchen smells sweet. Add the hing and count to five.
4. Add the ginger paste, cumin powder and red chilli powder with 2 tbsp water. Fry on low for 2 to 3 minutes until the raw smell goes and you can see fat at the edges of the paste.
5. Pour in the cooked dal along with its water. Add the rest of the salt, the raisins and the slit green chillies. Simmer 8 to 10 minutes until it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. Add hot water if it gets too tight.
6. Add the sugar and simmer one more minute. Taste now. Cholar dal should be lightly sweet behind the spice, not sweet like a dessert. Adjust salt and sugar together.
7. Switch off the flame. Stir in the last 1 tbsp ghee and most of the fried coconut. Cover and leave it for 2 minutes so the ghee spreads through.
8. Scatter the rest of the coconut on top. Serve hot with luchi, or with radhaballabhi or plain rice.

Tips

• Bengali garam masala is not the usual one. It is only cinnamon, green cardamom and clove, ground fresh, with no cumin or coriander. If you want to add 1/4 tsp at the end, grind those three yourself. Shop garam masala will make the dal taste like North Indian curry.
• Make ahead: cook the dal a day earlier and keep it in the fridge. Do the tadka fresh on the day, then bring the two together. It actually tastes better this way.
• Storage: keeps 3 days in the fridge. It thickens a lot when cold, so loosen with hot water while reheating and add a fresh half spoon of ghee at the end.
• The commonest mistake is overcooking the dal into mush. Chana dal keeps softening in its own heat after you switch off. Stop one whistle earlier than you think you should.