Dal with Raw Mango: Tangy Yellow Lentils

With garlic, curry leaves and ghee for company, dal with raw mango is like heaven in a bowl. What’s more, it doesn’t take much to give your workaday yellow dal this exotic tangy twist. Let me show you how.

My lentil of choice for dal with raw mango is toor dal; I imagine the recipe would work with yellow moong dal as well.

You Need:

• Toor dal – 3/4 cup
• Raw mango* – 1/2 (~3/4 cup of long slices)
• Garlic – 6 small cloves (reduce count for larger-sized garlic cloves)
• Green chilies – 4
• Turmeric powder – 1/4 teaspoon
• Salt – to taste

For tadka:

• Curry leaves – a few sprigs
• Dry red chili – 1
• Mustard seeds – 1/2 teaspoon
• Ghee – 2 teaspoons

For garnish:

• Fresh coriander leaves – 1 tablespoon, chopped

*Assuming a medium-sized green totapuri mango. You could increase the quantity of raw mango if using a less sour variety.

How To Make Dal with Raw Mango:

1. Prepare the ingredients

Peel raw mango and cut into thin slices.

Mix half a teaspoon of salt into the raw mango slices and keep them aside for 30 minutes. [Doing so helps to reduce the tartness of the mango. You can skip this step if the raw mango is not too sour to start with or if you prefer the dal intensely sour.]

After 30 minutes, you’ll find that the raw mango slices has given off water. Squeeze out the saline raw mango water, retain mango slices for the next step.

2. Boil the dal

Wash toor dal in several changes of water till the water runs clear.

Soak washed dal in two cups of water for 30 minutes.

Place these ingredients in a pressure cooker: soaked toor dal, three cups of water, raw mango slices, garlic cloves, whole green chilies, turmeric powder.

Lock the lid of the pressure cooker and cook till the dal is done. In an Indian-style pressure cooker, this would meanboiling till one whistle on high heat, then three more whistles on low heat.

Let the pressure release naturally and unlock lid.

To the boiled dal, add salt to taste and mix.

3. Do the tadka

Break the dry red chili into 2-3 pieces.

Wash and pat dry curry leaves.

In a tadka ladle, heat ghee. Add to the hot ghee mustard seeds and when they splutter, add dry red chili pieces and curry leaves. As soon as they sizzle, switch off the heat.

Pour the tadka into the hot just-cooked dal.

Dal with raw mango is ready. Serve hot, garnished with fresh chopped coriander leaves.

Notes:

Want to do more with raw mango? Try this lovely summer drink aam panna, make raw mango salsa with it or use it in raw mango mint chutney.