Date Published: July 20th, 2024 | Last Updated: July 20th, 2024
Author: Abby |Category: mains, vegetarian, easy, healthy, low-cal
Serves: 4 as a main | Prep time: 1 hour | Cook time: 2 hours

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Dal (or dahl, daal, dhal) is a delicious vegetarian Indian curry made of lentils. You’ll find it on the menu at any Indian restaurant and there is a huge variety of ways you can make dal. It’s both flavourful and healthy!

In the past I’ve always found dal to be good, but never comparable to the infamous butter chicken, however that all changed during our recent trip to London. Toby took me to a Michelin-starred Indian restaurant called Trishna for my birthday and holy moly, of the entire tasting menu, the roasted garlic dal blew me away! I was thinking about it for days after and hoped I would be able to recreate it when I got home. After some trial and error testing different dal and roasted garlic recipes, I’m glad to report that I’ve done it! I’ve recreated that magical garlic dal from ‘Trishna’. The main base dal recipe is from RecipeTinEats but with a few little tweaks and with the addition of the roasted garlic.

Although this recipe is not difficult to make, there are a few ingredients required and it takes a little to let everything simmer – I promise it’s well worth the wait!

Anyways, without further ado, here’s the recipe! If you have any comments or suggestions, I’d love to hear from you in the comment section! You can follow me on instagram, youtube and facebook to see all the recipes I post!

Happy cooking!

Ingredients you’ll need:

• Roasted garlic:
  • 2 garlic bulbs
  • Drizzle olive oil
  • Pinch of salt
  • Pinch of black pepper
• Dal:
  • 1 cup chana dal/yellow split lentils
  • 2 Tbsps ghee (or 1 Tbsp oil + 1 Tbsp butter)
  • 2 long green chillies, deseeded & diced small
  • 1 small onion (red or yellow), diced small
  • 6 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1.5 Tbsps ginger, minced
  • 8 dried (or 10 fresh) curry leaves
  • 1 tomato, diced small
  • 1/2 tsp ground cumin
  • 4 cups (1L) water
  • 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
  • 1/8 tsp garam masala
  • 1 tsp kosher/cooking salt (or more to taste)
• To serve: basmati rice or naan

Directions:

Rinse the chana dal/yellow split lentils and let it soak in water for at least 1 hour, then strain and set aside.

While the lentils are soaking, roast the garlic:

Preheat the oven to 375˚F (190˚C).

Prepare a small square baking tray and pour in a drizzle of olive oil. Slice the base off of the garlic bulbs (the flat side – see photo) and dip the exposed side into the olive oil and place the bulbs in the tray, cut side up. Sprinkle salt and pepper over top. Make sure all the exposed garlic cloves are covered in oil so it doesn’t burn.

Cover the tray with aluminum foil and bake in the preheated oven for 40 minutes.

After 40 mins, take it out of the oven, remove the foil and let the roasted garlic cool down. Once cool enough to handle, gently remove the garlic cloves from the outer layer and set aside.

In a skillet on HIGH heat, melt the ghee (or butter/oil). Then add in the green chillies and sauté for 2 minutes until starting to soften. Next add in the onions and continue to sauté for another 3-4 minutes until the onion softens.

Once the onion has softened, turn the heat down to MEDIUM and add in the minced garlic, ginger, and curry leaves. Cook for 1 minute until the garlic is fragrant.

Add in the diced tomatoes and cumin and continue to sauté for another 2-3 minutes until the tomatoes break down and you’re starting to get a paste.

Add in the water, turmeric powder, garam masala and salt. Mix everything around and bring the heat up to HIGH to let it come to a boil, then turn the heat down to LOW and simmer the dal with the lid on for 1 hour, stirring intermittently.

(You can make the basmati rice or whatever side you like in this time.)

After 1 hour take off the lid and let the dal continue to simmer for 30 minutes to reduce the liquid. The dal has finished cooking when it looks like a porridge-consistency and the liquid has reduced to your liking.

Mash the roasted garlic cloves (from step 1) and add it into the dal. Taste and adjust salt as needed. Done! Serve over a bed of basmati rice or with naan.

Summarized Recipe: