Dal Maharani – Instant Pot UPDATE

Dal Maharani Recipe

Adapted from my original eatyeats.com recipe found here to account for kid-friendliness and Instant Pot (electric pressure cooker) instructions since I no longer own the stove pot pressure cooker.

Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup black urad whole dal
  • 1/2 cup red kidney beans
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp turmeric
  • 1 tsp red chili powder
  • 1 cinammon stick
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 2 cloves
  • 1 tbsp ginger garlic paste (see above)
  • puree of 1 onion and 1 green chili (e.g serrano) seeds removed. For spicier dishes you can experiment with
    • Half seeds removed next time OR
    • 2 green chilis with seeds removed 
    • OR 1 green chili including seeds
  • 3 pureed tomatoes
  • 1 tsp cumin powder
  • 1 tsp coriander powder
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • 1.5 tsp garam masala divided into 1 tsp and 1/2 tsp
  • 1/2 tsp black pepper powder
  • oil for cooking (vegetable, canola or grapeseed is fine)
  • 1 tbsp ghee (optional)
  • cilantro for garnish

Method

  • Soak the lentils and beans in 3 cups of water for ~4 hours.
  • Turn your instant pot to sauce and low heat 
  • Put 2 tablespoons of oil and 1 tbsp ghee in your pressure cooker and heat on low heat until melted and the oil is hot.
  • Add the cinnamon stick, bay leaf and 2 cloves and let them fry for 1 minute.
  • Then add pureed onion/green chili mix.
  • Add salt, turmeric and chili powder to the mix and stir to combine.
  • Cook the onion and spice mix till the onion mix changes color, going darker brown, water has dried up, the onion has started to reduce in quantity and oil begins to ooze out of the onions. Stir occasionally.
    • 3-5 minutes on low heat.
  • Add the ginger garlic paste, continuing to sitr the mixture another 1 minute.
  • Then add cumin and coriander continuing to stir for another 1 minute. The color should have changed more and be even darker.
  • Add the tomato pruee and cook for 2-3 more minutes continuing to stir.
  • Add 1 tsp garam masala
  • Add lentils and beans including the water they were soaked in and stir it all together. 
  • Add 1/2 cup of water. 
  • Cook on high pressure for 30 minutes
  • Natural release 10 mins
  • Give everything a good stir. Give it a taste. If the red beans still seem firm, turn on the heat and cook down for a little longer, perhaps another 5 minutes.
  • Add the 1 cup of cream, 1/2 tsp garam masala and 1/2 tsp ground pepper.
  • Stir through and add some cilantro leaves.
  • Garnish with more cilantro if you like and enjoy!

Safta’s Beef Goulash

Ingredients

  • 1 medium onion chopped
  • 1.5 lbs chuck roast meat diced into 1 inch cubes (a little less is fine, whatever butcher recommends for slow cook roast meat)
  • 3 medium carrots peeled and chopped into large angled chunks
  • 2 tsp paprika (sweet Hungarian, not smoked)
  • 1 tsp chicken soup powder
  • 1/2 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/2 tsp onion powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • Cracked pepper
  • 1 tbsp tomato paste
  • 1 tbsp sweet chili sauce (just a squeeze)
  • 1 cup water (water instructions needed)
  • 1 pack spaetzle (for serving)

Method

  • Heat oven to 325 degrees
  • Heat a medium dutch oven on medium
  • Cook onion in 2 tbsps hot oil 
  • Add diced meat to pot
  • Add all spices (paprika, chicken soup powder, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper) 
  • Mix everything well together
  • Add peeled carrots and stir
  • Add tomato paste, sweet chilli sauce and 1 cup water
  • Bring to a low simmer 
  • Cook on very low heat for 1 hour on stove top
  • Put in the oven for at least another 2 hours, up to 3 hours. Check every 30 minutes and add more water (1/4 cup at a time) if it’s looking a little dry

To Serve

  • Cook 1 pack spaetzle according to package directions
  • Serve on top of spaetzle

Dal Maharani and the Tale of the Whistling Pressure Cooker

Home made Dal Maharani or Dal Makhani has been a staple at our place for about a year now. While it’s certainly not the prettiest dish out there it really is delicious. We used to order it regularly from an Indian restaurant in the West Village but once we moved to Brooklyn we found it really tough to find one that was just as good. So I decided to do some research on exactly what went into making this dish. I have to admit once I found some recipes online I was a little put off. There seemed to be so much preparation necessary and so many concepts that seemed so foreign. For example, do you know what goes into making ginger garlic paste? Have you ever used a pressure cooker? Where can you find ghee? Should you use cream or substitute with yogurt for a healthier alternative? What the heck is onion puree? With a little encouragement, some Amazon purchases, a trip to an Indian specialty food store, a few youtube instructional videos and some trial and error I’m proud to say that I can make some mean home made Dal Maharani that will put your local Indian restaurant to shame! I hope you find this information useful and decide to give vegetarian Indian cooking a try. I have to say a big thank you to Aditi at Eat East Indian. It was her video that gave me the confidence to take the plunge and try making this Dal recipe at home. You can find the link to the video here. Now let me tell you more about how to make Dal Maharani.

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Super (Bread Soup) Bowl Sunday

I couldn’t help myself. It’s super bowl weekend so I came up with a witty and fitting title for this blog post! Aren’t I smart? 🙂 I haven’t done a blow by blow (or is it play by play for superbowl?) take of making a single dish in a while so I thought why not use this weeks blue apron french onion soup in a sourdough bread bowl to get back into the swing of things. You can get the recipe from blue apron right here. If you’re having a quiet super bowl night in why not make this delicious soup?

Let us begin! Not too many ingredients for this. Sourdough boules not pictured below.

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Let the caramelization begin…

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