I am reading “Bengali Cooking: Seasons & Festivals” by Chitrita Banerji. This book is like a collection of essays about seasonal cooking in West Bengal & Bangladesh. The book is divided into four parts - Spring/Summer (Basanta/Grishma), Monsoon (Barsha), Early/late autumn (Sharat/Hemanta) & Winter (Sheet). Festivals, food, traditions and Bengali culture is woven around the seasons. The book of course has the recipes. and while reading, I came across this unusual daal - lemon daal. Daal is tempered with panch phoran - Bengali 5 spice mix and then added to the lemon-lined container just before serving. This adds a delicate lemon flavor to the daal. I found it very refreshing. Though it is recommended to serve with plain rice, I slurped this daal like a soup.
Lemon Daal
Adapted from Bengali cooking by Chitrita Banerji
Ingredients
1 cup masoor or moog daal
salt to taste
sugar to taste (optional)
1 lemon, cut into thin slices
Tempering
1 tsp oil
1 bay leaf
A pinch of asafoetida
1 tsp panch phoran
1/2″ ginger
1 green chili
1 red chili
Method
1. Pressure cook daal and keep aside.
2. Heat oil. Add all the ingredients for tempering.
3. Add water to cooked daal. Bring to boil. Add salt & sugar
4. Add tempered oil to daal.
5. Arrange thin slices of lemon at the bottom and around the sides of a ceramic bowl or pot.
6. Pour daal in the ceramic pot/bowl. Cover and keep aside for 5 minutes.
7. Serve with plain rice.
Note -
1.This daal can’t be reheated or kept overnight as it will turn bitter. So pour in the lemon-lined container just before serving.
Credits
Bengali cooking:Seasons & Festivals by Chitrita Banerji.
This post is my contribution to Jihva:Lime/Lemon at The Spice Cafe by Coffee.
Jihva series is started by Indira of Mahanandi.
Read the rest of the story at
Meera Other posts by Meera
This entry was posted
on Saturday, February 16th, 2008 at 4:00 am and is filed under Uncategorized.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
I am reading “Bengali Cooking: Seasons & Festivals” by Chitrita Banerji. This book is like a collection of essays about seasonal cooking in West Bengal & Bangladesh. The book is divided into four parts - Spring/Summer (Basanta/Grishma), Monsoon (Barsha), Early/late autumn (Sharat/Hemanta) & Winter (Sheet). Festivals, food, traditions and Bengali culture is woven around the seasons. The book of course has the recipes. and while reading, I came across this unusual daal - lemon daal. Daal is tempered with panch phoran - Bengali 5 spice mix and then added to the lemon-lined container just before serving. This adds a delicate lemon flavor to the daal. I found it very refreshing. Though it is recommended to serve with plain rice, I slurped this daal like a soup. 
