Inexpensive Moong Dal and the Montreal Metro's Helpful Spice-Grinding Tips

So I was in the metro yesterday and looked up at the big MetroVision screens that tell you when the next train is coming and give you some generally uninformative news headlines, when lo and behold, I read the following:

"To grind spices in a mortar and pestle, crush them using an up and down motion."

Now that's loosely paraphrasing from the French but the "up and down motion" was pretty word for word ("d'haut en bas" I think?). Well, thanks MetroVision. And here I thought you never did much of use besides pass the time, but no, here you are informing the Quebec populace to grind whole spices themselves and exactly how to do it. Well, not EXACTLY...

There is actually mortar and pestle technique, and many Quebecers will be frustrated that their spices jump all over the place because their mortar is too small, or too light, or not coarse-edged enough. My mortar and pestle technique was first learned in Poh's Kitchen. The "best mortar and pestle" discussion gets going about 2'45" minutes into the episode, and the "technique" discussion is at 5'40":


What I basically learned from this episode is that if I ever want to marry into an Indonesian, Thai, or Malaysian family I'm going to have to work on my spice-grinding technique (Note how I did not write "grinding" technique. That would have been embarrassing). I need to relax my wrist and let the weight of the pestle do more of the work.

What else I learned from this episode was that fully smashed chilies are very hot, but bruised chilies are more subtle. Final important Thai cooking tip: heat fades in oil, so the ton of oil in the cooking makes the heat more manageable. I'll take the heat and cut the oil to the minimum, thanks.

Now if only these things would stick in my head, since I watched this episode in the early summer and I am still nowhere closer to marriage. Not that I was trying or anything. God...

The point of all this is that:

1) The Metro is good, but not great since it didn't tell Montrealers to toast their spices before grinding, but it did tell them to not buy pre-ground spices.

2) If I can't marry a Thai, maybe India will take me, since I've put my mortar and pestle skills to work a few times lately in Indian dahls (or dals).

"Dry" Moong Dal
Sookhi Moong Dal

I actually had moong dal in my cupboard! I bought it randomly, figuring I'd need it sometime for an Indian recipe. It actually worked. When does that ever work? You can find it at Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi grocers, so anywhere in Parc Ex or Pointe Ste-Charles (though it may not be labeled and you may need to have a hand conversation. Fortunately "moong dal" is still "moong dal" internationally. Just don't spell it for the person in the shop. That would be silly since the package may or may not be labeled in English. Well, maybe not silly. Do what you must and try not to feel like an embarrassed, culturally curious but under-educated Canadian. We all are, but just don't admit it. It's like academics never saying their sorry. For the love of God, why don't people apologize more. I don't mean walk around apologizing for every silly little thing, but if you can say excuse me when you bump into someone or "pardon", a better version in French, then surely people can admit they're wrong without admitting weakness. I digress...

1 cup (200g) moong dal (you can't really substitute other dals without changing the cooking time)
4 cups plus 1 tbsp plus 1 cup water
1 tsp coriander, ground
1 tsp cumin, ground
1/4 tsp ground turmeric (if you can find whole, by all means grind it)
1/8th-1/4 tsp. cayenne (I obviously tend toward the 1/4 tsp, but I understand that others may disagree)
2 tbsp oil (not olive. I used oil drained from my Indian jalapeno pickle...for extra heat, salt, and flavour)
1/2 tsp. salt (I used less because there was tons of salt in my pickled jalapenos already...actually, I think this time I forgot again and cursed myself for having made the same mistake twice - adding too much salt, as I did in my pickle in the first place)

For the Baghaar (the hot oil, spice mixture that seasons the dish just before serving):
1 tbsp ghee or oil (ghee is good for flavour, but you can't use butter even though ghee is just a clarified butter. You COULD use 1 tbsp butter and 1 tbsp oil so the butter doesn't burn, but an Indian person will not be impressed. You will not find yourself anytime soon. That is obviously your goal, I know...I just used 1 tbsp more of the chili oil from my Indian jalapenos pickle. More heat, more flavour, more salt...)
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 dried, red hot chili (optional, especially if you use a chili oil like I did)

All you do in a dal is cook the lentils and then season is with a baghaar (the spice mixture cooked briefly in oil) which gets poured over top. It's the simplest dish. This one adds an extra step of seasoning with more spices in advance, and you'll find the dish much easier to digest if you follow the lentil soaking procedure. It basically acts similarly to "raw" food dishes where you want to release enzymes that give your stomach more of a work-out than it needs.

Wash the dal is several changes of water. At first it may not seem that any cloudiness is coming out, but stir it gently with your fingers for a minute to get it to open up to you, like perfect basmati rice, but longer. Drain the rice, then pour 4 cups of water (or more. You don't really need to measure. It's not a big deal) over it in a large bowl and let it sit for 2 hours. Then drain it again. Let it sit in the colander to wait, or don't use quite as much water later after you add the dal to the pot. It should end up being not too dry, but definitely not mushy from over-cooking to evaporate excess water.

Now the recipe says to use pre-ground spices but that's ridiculous. Do it only if you are satisfied with mediocre flavour. Sometimes I too am satisfied with it, but where you're cooking with water, not broth, the dish needs all the help it can get. So I toasted the coriander and cumin instead in a frying pan over medium heat for just a few minutes until they had browned slightly, giving the pan a good shake from time to time, and then ground he spices in my too-small mortar and pestle using my pre-discussed poor technique and tight wrist. Coriander flew everywhere, those little buggers, but eventually I was happy with the texture of the grind. Not too coarse or you'll be biting into coriander seeds (not really fun...or easy to digest) but not too fine. You can also grind in a blender or food processor or coffee grinder, but these are very fine grinds. In this case it's okay, really since the original recipe calls for pre-ground spices)

Phew! Done. Now combine the ground coriander and cumin with the turmeric, cayenne and 1 tbsp water in a small bowl. Stir.

Put the first amount of oil (up to 2 tbsp. I usually skimp a little, but not much or the spices will burn. A good trick is the keep all the oil to one side of the pot and when add add the spices directly onto that area instead of letting the oil spread all over the pot and not be a thick enough layer to keep the spices from burning) in the pot and when hot add the spices and water from the bowl. Do this with a rubber spatula so you get everything out all at once.

Give the spices one quick stir in the corner of the pot with the oil and then add the drained dal. Stir to mix. Add the salt and 1 cup of water. Bring it to a boil and then cover the pot tightly (place a plate on top if you can/have to to keep the lid tight) and turn the heat to "very low" for 15 minutes. This is a bit tricky because every stove is different and you don't know the first time you make this what the perfect heat will be. You want the dal grains to be tender and most of the water to be absorbed. So after 15 minutes (no peeking beforehand) test some of the grains to see if they're tender. If there's an obvious layer of liquid still in the pot and the grains are tender, then turn up the heat, remove the cover and let it boil off a little. If there's too much water and the grains aren't tender, bring the pot to a boil again, put the cover back on, and reduce the heat to slightly less low than last time. Let cook 5 minutes and check. If still not tender, cook 5 more minutes, etc.

Take the cooked dal off the heat and leave covered, waiting to be spiced. Or place the cooked dal in a large serving bowl and do the next step fairly quickly. It won't cool down that fast, but my kitchen is frigid...

For the Bhagaan:


Put the ghee (or more oil) in a small frying pan and when it's hot put in the cumin seeds. 3 seconds later (love it) add the red chili if using and cook 3 more seconds (amazing). It's supposed to darken and puff up a little but well...don't cry if it doesn't. You're probably already not getting married at this point. So it's been a total of 6 seconds and now you can pour the whole contents of the frying pan over the hot dal. You can stir, or just leave the spices on top as a kind of garnish. Fried onions are a traditional garnish, and delicious, but a lighter option would be chopped coriander...or more pickled jalapenos...mmm...

Affordable Taste: An Indian Dinner of "Dry" Moong Dal

A food friend once told me that in his opinion the only vegetarian food in the world worth eating is Indian. I don't fully agree. I do hate tofu and soy of all kinds, but there are a whole lot of other good vegetarian food options out there, even if North American vegetarian restaurants tend to disagree (I'm looking at you "Fresh" in Toronto and "Aux Vivres" in Montreal). There's Ethiopian, Mexican, South American, French, and Italian, to name a few prime examples, but I understand my friend's point. Meat (fat) gives flavour. It's easy to make a meal with meat delicious without doing too much. Vegetable oil and other kinds of oils just aren't as naturally delicious as meat fat, so vegetarian food has to work a little harder. Indian food (very similar to Ethiopian) brilliantly uses complicated blends of spices to flavour otherwise dull things (lentils and beans). Even so, using the same spices to flavour meat is astronomically better.

Like eating out every day, though, eating meat at every meal because it tastes better is just not sustainable, both financially and physically. Your body needs a respite from time to time. Look at cultures that involve traditional fasting. All sorts of religions incorporate a set period when the body can clean itself out, either by restricting times of the day you can eat, or what you can eat. The same goes for the spices in food. It's all traditional. People who make the food that way may not know why certain spices go together, but they sure know it tastes good and it's healthy for them. Who cares if ginger is good for the immune system so a hunk of it goes in Vietnamese soup? Meat is a treat, and maybe people would eat more of it if they could afford to do so, but not every body is designed to function at its peak that way. Everything in moderation? Unless you're a monk, or a vegan...

Anyway, my point is that if you just think Indian is the only good vegetarian food out there, you're limiting yourself. Ethiopian, for example, is very similar, using slightly different spices in the same way. Coincidentally (or not) there was a large migration from India to East Africa (mainly Kenya) to build railroads and I'm not sure who brought what spices where, or where traditions originated, but the end result is delicious. Chile peppers, turmeric, fenugreek, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon (have you ever seen a cinnamon tree? You want to lick the bark), and most importantly, salt. Nothing against a perfect batch of baked beans, corn and squash tamales, or a traditional vegetable minestrone or fresh pasta, but Indians and Ethiopians got this whole spice thing figured out.

With that in mind, I made a healthy dinner. I generally don't make a bunch of Indian dishes in one night because it's labour intensive. Instead I'll make make one the first night, the next night I'll make another and eat it with leftovers from the first night, and maybe the third night I'll make another and put all the items together for a true Indian meal. Here's what I made: "Dry" Moong Dal ("Sookhi" Moong Dal), Corn and Potatoes with Mustard Seeds and Mint (Bhutta aur aloo ki mazedar tarkari), Gluten-Free Bread (to replace naan, since the dry dal was supposed to be served with bread, not rice) and raita (plain, thick yogurt to help digest the lentils with the bread. Complete protein and all).

I find lentils boring on their own, but the little bit of sugar in the bread made them absolutely savoury and delicious. Naan would also work perfectly, and on the third day I had the lentils with some leftover kulcha (like a naan, but yeast-free. Not lactose-free) from an Indian restaurant I'd gone to in Parc Extension, Indian Maison Curry House.

The dal is a really easy recipe.1 cup moong dal (this is not moong dal above...I used these green lentils instead. It's a different taste, but definitely not a bad one)
About 5 cups of water, divided
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp cayenne (never skimp on this...)
2 tsp oil (...or this...)
1/2 tsp salt (...or this, in the case of lentils, since they're bland enough already)
1 tbsp oil or ghee
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 dried red chili

Wash the dal like you would rice, in several changes of water. For real moong dal you're supposed to soak it for 3 hours, but these lentils don't need to be pre-soaked for so long, so just stick them in 4 cups of water until you need them later in the recipe. Drain them before adding them below. If you skip this step and the lentils don't absorb enough water, you'll just need to add more later to make sure they cook fully.

Combine the 1st four spices (up to the cayenne) along with a tbsp of water in a small cup.

Heat the first amount of oil over medium in a large pot and when it's hot put in the spice mixture. See, you don't need a lot of oil because the spices have water mixed in. It will be harder for you to burn them. Stir the spices for a second (for once the recipe doesn't say something like "For 5 seconds". It just says "Stir once", which I think is still hilarious. What if I accidentally stir twice? and what constitutes a stir?) then add drained dal. Stir and then add a cup of water. Bring the mixture to a boil and reduce the heat to very low, cover the pot and let it simmer for 15 minutes. Depending on your type of dal and whether or not you soaked it long enough you may need to cook it longer or add more water. Just make sure it always stays at a simmer but doesn't start to stick to the bottom of the pot. "Very" low can also be misleading and end up causing you to wait more than patiently for your lentils to cook.

Now the fun part.

Just before you're ready to eat (aka the dal is tender, "dry" or not too liquidy, and not sticking to the pot) heat the remaining oil or ghee in a small frying pan over high heat. You want this to be VERY hot oil so don't use olive oil. The heat is necessary to extract as much flavour as possible from the spices. You're basically going to create spiced oil and use it as a seasoning.

So add the cumin seeds to the hot oil. Count to 3.

Add the hot chili. Count to 3 again. It should puff up and darken. If not, just count to 3 and get on with your life/recipe.

Now pour the oil, cumin seeds and chili right over the pot of dal and stir it in. You can also place the dal on individual serving plates and pour a small amount of the spiced oil over each portion as a garnish, or just place the whole pot of dal with the oil on top on the table and serve family-style. I recommend mixing it in, though, because it lets the spices blend, so you don't end up with some people having bland bowls of dal and some having spiced ones. You can also fry some very thinly sliced onions in a few tablespoons of oil on medium-high until they're crispy and browned, drain them on paper towels, and serve them on top.

Serve with some kind of flatbread (or my gluten-free bread, or anything that isn't a piece of whole wheat, comes in a bag, or is sandwich bread. This is not a French meal) and some yogurt to help the digestion. Mango for dessert? I got 14 at Jean-Talon and biked them home. Soon I will start a series called "What did Amie bike home from Jean-Talon this week?". Half a watermelon, 14 mangos, 5 oranges, 4 peaches, 2 bunches of asparagus, a bag of lettuce, and a canteloupe. Thank you Leonardo's. If only you were at Atwater.

5 Minute Moong Dal With Red Lentils and Browned Onions

Not the cooking time (5 minutes), but the writing time.

and, GO!

Okay, so this is a simple recipe for lentils. I basically had no other protein in my house and had to figure out something nourishing and comforting. For me, that means dal. I have no idea what kind of dal I actually used. I only used one even though the recipe called for two. It was black and a small lentil but if it was actually moong dal like the recipe wanted, I have no clue. Still, the recipe worked fine and my tummy was happy, and will yours, probably. All tummies are different, after all.

1 cup dal (some kind of lentil - red, black...specifically moong dal is called for, so if you can find it)
1 cup split red lentils
5 cups water
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp oil
pinch of ground asafetida
1 tsp fennel seeds
4 dried hot red chilies
1 small onion, very finely sliced into rings

Five minutes are up, I lose. I'll be back!

Okay, I'm back.

Moong dal, continued:

So I love fried onions. I hate onion rings even though they're almost the same thing but not breaded. You get this intense onion flavour that you either love or hate, but your tongue gets to go swimming in oil since you essentially just deep-fryed the slices. I think I first got into them when someone I knew told me their favourite dish was biryani and they tried it at every restaurant they could find, the best in downtown Toronto being found at Quick Pita on College for awhile. That didn't include Little India on Gerrard Street, but for convenience sake, Quick Pita was pretty good, apparently. Anyway, they're the garnish for this dish, which makes it a little more gourmet than simple boiled lentils.

First, wash the lentils. Put them in a bowl and wash them like rice. Actually, you need to start the rice about the same time (or before) you start washing the dal. That way the rice can soak and the grains will stay separate.

After a few changes of water to clean the dal, drain them and put them in a big pot. Add the water and turmeric. Turmeric will take away some of the effect of beans on your digestive system ("Beans, beans, good for the heart..." etc.). Bring the dal to a simmer (don't let it boil over) and then reduce the heat, cover it but leave it "slightly ajar" (this is apparently the traditional way to cook lentils - partially covered) and let the dal simmer softly for about 45 minutes. It shouldn't completely fall apart, but it should be tender. If you don't use moong dal and red lentils, whatever you use may cook faster or slower. If you don't use lentils at all but you use beans instead, make sure you soak the beans overnight and then cook them. Lentils are split (like "split peas") and don't need to be soaked. They're the convenient legume, but it's all relative. 45 minutes is not exactly quick cooking. Unlike rice, you're allowed to stir the dal a few times while it's cooking, and when it's done you season right away with the salt, stir, and then leave covered over low heat if you don't have the next step already done while you were waiting for the lentils to cook.

All that's left is to heat the oil over high heat, and do some very quick, hot sauté-ing. This makes lots of noise, and looks really flashy, so if you have people over, they can watch in the kitchen and you'll look like a culinary superstar. Take that, Nigella.

When the oil's hot put in the pinch of asafetida, (be carefully of hot flying oil) count to 1 (yes, 1) and then add the fennel seeds. Count to 3 and then add the red chiles. Count to 4 and then add the onions. What happened to 2? Shouldn't you have to count to 2 somewhere? Then it would be called 1-2-3-4 frying. 1-3-4 is not as catchy, but traditional foods are not meant to be catchy, I suppose. They're probably just meant to be practical. So skip counting to 2. It's an unnecessary number and a waste of 2 seconds of your life.

Stir, stir, stir and reduce the heat to medium-high until the onions are very brown and crisp. They'll look like you really over-cooked them, but they'll taste great. If they really start to look like they're blackening or burning, turn the heat down a little more. Now pour everything from the frying pan into the dal that's set on low waiting for you patiently. You want to pour all the oil in too, not just the onions and spices. There may not be a whole lot of oil leftover, but you really need the fat of the oil in this to help digest the lentils. Otherwise there's about zero grams of fat and you'll never feel full and you'll have an awful time digesting, despite your use of turmeric. Actually I even drained the lentils after cooking them (before adding the salt) and added more turmeric, just to get more starch out of the water that had come out of the lentils while they cooked.

Serve on a bed of beautiful basmati rice that you've maybe even timed correctly to have finished just now and pour a little bit of yogurt on the side of the plate. The dairy actually helps turn the rice and lentils into a full protein! Ah, the miracles of Indian cooking. So sorry vegans, your protein will be incomplete, but your tongue will be happy from beautiful fried onions and oil.