Achari Tinda wali Dal (Spiced Lentils with Apple Gourd) brings together two of my favorite ingredients i.e. Channa Dal and tinda together in a fantastic curry which goes well with roti or rice !
Regular readers of this blog know how much I love dals and various variations to them. At home, we eat a lot of lentils and usually much beyond the regular yellow dals (moong, toor and channa) but being a Punjabi I have a secret love for channa dal. I like it with a simple garlic and jeera tadka and then with a good onion, tomato roast, as the Oriya style Dalma and I even like the slightly sweet cholar dal from Bengal or as Chana Dal pulao we traditionally make on some festivals, back home. Despite all these, one of my favorite ways to really eat it is Lauki and Channa dal cooked together. It is one of the things I have grown up eating during my childhood. Mum would sometimes vary the seasoning of the same which would alter flavours – an achari tadka, simple jeera-ginger tadka and sometimes even with sambhar powder, but the dal was made once a week. So this achari tinda wali dal is an extension of that!
Sometime ago I saw Neha make a variation of this with Tinda instead of Lauki and I knew I had to try this one. I love Tinda as well, so this couldn’t go wrong in my head.
And my love for tinda is obvious in the recipes I have on the blog. The Bharwan tinda with that stunning filling, or the simple dahi walla tinda which my mom started making a few years ago, the tinda sure is an amazing vegetable to eat! And the fact that tinda has a neutral taste, which means that it adapts to whatever masala you add to it, just makes it an even more amazing vegetable to cook with! So what are you waiting for? Try this super delicious achari tinda wali dal for lunch today!
Achari Tinda walli Dal (Spiced Lentils with Apple Gourd)
Ingredients
- 1 cup channa dal
- 1 onion medium finely chopped
- 2 tomatoes large chopped
- 2 green chillies
- to taste salt
- 1 tbsp ghee
- pinch heeng
- 1 tsp mustard seeds
- 1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds (methi)
- 1/2 tsp fennel seed (saunf)
- 1/2 tsp nigella seeds
- 1 tsp mango powder dry
- 1/2 tsp chilli powder
Instructions
- Wash and soak Channa dal for about 2 hours (I soak all my dals including moong dal. Soaking dal helps removes the toxins from them and also makes them easy to digest)
- Peel and chop tinda in four pieces. Keep aside.
- In a pressure cooker, boil together dal, tinda, onion, green chillies and tomatoes. Add salt and turmeric along with it. This should take about one whistle and 6-7 minutes on simmer. Wait for the steam to escape.
- Lightly pound together mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds (methi), fennel seed (sauf) and nigella seeds together/
- Heat ghee in a tadka pan and add heeng to it. Let it sizzle and add the pounded spice mix. Saute for 2 minutes and add chilli powder and dry mango powder. Add the tadka to the dal and serve hot garnished with coriander.
Leave a Reply