Turn your leftover dal into a delicacy
Wondering what to do with last night’s leftover dal? These easy and mouth-watering recipes will turn it into a treat!
Dal or lentils are an everyday item cooked in the Indian kitchen. And most of the time, we end up making extra dal which sometimes turn out to be boring. You don’t have to throw away the leftover dal, you can put it to good use with these mouth-watering recipe ideas.
How about making Dal Tikki from your leftover dal? It’s a perfect evening snack that you can enjoy with tea and a perfect dish to be enjoyed during the rain. To make this dish, you would need leftover chana dal, boiled potatoes, poha, green chili chop, fresh coriander chop, chopped onion, red chilli powder, roasted chana powder, lemon juice and roasted cumin powder, oil and garam masala. When everything is in place, take leftover dal and make sure there is no water in it, take the dry part, add in a bowl. Add boiled aloo, poha, and other ingredients. Make nice soft dough while mixing all ingredients well. Then make small patties and cook them on a non stick tawa or pan. Put some oil in a pan or tawa and cook the patties till it becomes crisp from outside and soft inside. Serve hot with home style green chutney or ketchup.
Another very interesting dish you can make from leftover dal is litti, which is a very popular dish in east India. Serve it with honey chilli ghee and roasted tomato salsa to relish every morsel of it. For making this you will first have to make dal dry-fry. For this you need 2 tbsp desi ghee, 4 cup leftover dal (preferred yellow lentil), 2 tbsp fine chop onion, 1 tbsp fine chop garlic, ½ tbsp fine chop ginger, ½ tsp fine chop green chilly, ½ tsp crushed coriander seeds, pinch of hing or asafoetida. Now, in a hot pan add ghee with onion, garlic, ginger, green chili, coriander seeds and sauté until light brown. Add the leftover dal and hing and continuous stir with a wooden spoon until get dry. Make sure the heat is in medium or slow pressure and the cooking has to happen in slow method. When all the moisture evaporated then tries to make the dal mix as dry as much possible. Check the seasoning and remove from the heat and keep it aside to cool it down.
The next step is to make the litti dough. Take two cups of whole wheat flour, ½ tsp salt, 2 tbsp ghee , 1/8 tsp cooking soda. Add whole wheat flour, salt, ghee and cooking soda in a bowl and mix well. Add water and knead to make medium soft dough. Cover the dough and keep aside for 30 minutes.
Ingredients for honey chilli ghee will need ½ cup desi ghee (Warm), 1 tbsp honey, ½ tsp light soy sauce, ½ tsp synthetic vinegar, 1 tsp chopped green chili and salt to taste. In a pan, warm the ghee then keep it in a bowl and pour all the ingredients then cover it for an hour and keep it aside. Now for roasted tomato salsa, you need 8 tomatoes, 14 cloves finely chopped garlic, 5 pinches salt, 7 to 8 red chilli, 4 tablespoon sunflower oil and a few mustard seeds. Now, Heat 2 tbsp oil in a pan over medium flame, add the garlic and red chilies. Sauté for 3 to 4 minutes then remove and cool. To the same pan, add the tomatoes and sauté for 2 minutes. Switch off the flame. Combine the tomatoes, garlic, red chilies and salt. Grind to a fine paste, adding some water if required, and transfer to a small bowl. Heat 1 tsp oil and fry the mustard seeds for 30 seconds. Pour this over the salsa.
The final step is to assemble the litti and for that take out a large lemon sized dough and make it into a ball. Roll the dough ball to make a 4-5 inch circle. Keep 2 tbsp of filling in the centre of the dough and bring the ends together. Nicely seal the ends. Make all the lit in the same manner. Keep the litti covered with a cloth. Best to cook a litti in a charcoal fire like Bihar tradition style or pre heat an oven to 180 degrees C or take a roti tawa on a gas flame with slow heat. Bake for 20-25 minutes until browned from the top in a oven or put the litti on roti tawa then cover it fully with a steel bowl or something similar and after each few minutes sprinkle some warm water inside the bowl and then again cover it well. Flip the litti upside down and bake for another 10-12 minutes in oven or 7-8 minutes in tawa. They should be evenly browned from all the sides. Hold the litti with a tong and roast them over direct flame so that brown spots appear all over them. Dip the litti in ghee and serve with salsa.
And if you have a thing for Maharashtrian food, then Thaalipeeth is what you need to make from the leftover dal. Leftover dal, jowar flour 1 cup, besan 1/2 cup, rice flour 1/4 cup, fresh chopped coriander handful, chopped onion 1/2 cup, coriander powder 1tbsp, cumin powder 1 tbsp, red chilli powder 2 tbsp. Now all you need to do is to mix the ingredients well and knead a soft dough, flatten a dough ball with fingers on a greased pan, on a medium flame cook the thaalipeeth and try it with fresh curd and pickle.
Recipes by Vaibhav Bhargava and chef Chanchal Dutta.
