hello namaste salaamwalekum satsriyakaal;
welcome back to another session with
your VahChef at Vahrehvah.com. Today we are
travelling back down south to the deccan
one of the Indians finest dal varieties
Dosakai dal that is called dosakai
pappu it is a mouth-watering dish that is
made with ripe orange squash in the
middle of summer when these sour cucumbers
are in full orange ripeness I remember
as a kid going to the farmers market and
eating these cucumbers or dosakai with
little salt and pepper; pieces of this
cucumber cooked in dal gave the dal
the lentil a great flavor unfortunately
these days I do not get the same ripe
golden squash where I live but I have
learned to find an alternative which I
love very much as well; I discovered that
regular cucumber serves just as well
if you design it the way and get little
sourness in the recipe don't be surprised
with me telling you to design food if
you can dream it you can design it
think about it it's pretty much the same
way you design software or a
great-looking room so let's cook this
cucumber dal, for this you need two
small chopped tomatoes, turmeric, mustard
seeds, cumin seeds, chopped green chilli,
salt, red chilli whole, red chilly powder,
chopped garlic, chopped onion, curry
leaves and little hing powder; here is the
cucumber which i peeled and cut into
small cubes ehhm tastes good i also
boiled some dal this is tuvar dal what
i did i just pressure cooked it so you
know cook it really nice where you can
see the dal individually but when you
squeeze them they get mashed
add some oil use very little oil
because we are going to make it rich by
adding ghee or butter in the end so now when
the oil is hot add some red chilli just
half a teaspoon of mustard seeds ah look
at how beautifully they crackle ding chika
ahhh ok that's enough ok add some
cumin seeds my favorite ingredient add
garlic now even before you add onions
slightly cooked garlic gives better
flavor ok look at it ok ah as soon as
you add garlic my god I love this smell
ok see garlic is very important
especially all my dals especially when
I make dal with tuvar dal I love to add
garlic add it and you see the difference,
add the chopped onions,
add curry leaves, add chopped green chili,
add little bit salt
ok you can add hing
you know you don't have to cook the
onion till they're brown or anything you
just need to sweat them make them little
transparent and now you know we can add
a little bit of turmeric okay
add you know one and half tomatoes or two
tomatoes, when the tomatoes are slightly
cooked you don't have to worry because
once you add the cucumber when you cook
them together the tomatoes will get
mashed up so add this cucumbers now add
little bit water
isn't this very simple now after you add
little water just let it simmer till the
cucumbers are seventy percent cooked
because the next thirty percent we're
going to cook along with the dal so
just put the lid on and let it simmer
for few minutes and the cucumber will
be soft now you can see that the
cucumbers are nicely cooked so what we are
going to do we're going to add dal to this
okay ahh look at it look at it I like to
add a small piece of butter to my dal
and then mix it good
after you add dal check the consistency
if you want to make it little you know
little bit thinner you can add little
more water and then bring it to
boil and you don't have to cook long
because dal is cooked just it has to
absorb all the flavors from this
cucumber and this masala and we will cook
it just for 3 - 4 minutes and it'll be done
see if you want to bring the sourness you
can add little bit of tamarind juice
lot of the times I prefer to add
little bit of lime juice instead of
tamarind but you can add whatever you
want you can add tamarind juice or lime
juice or lemon juice Ah dal is almost
ready very nice flavor, so finish it off
by adding little bit coriander leaf and
haha see my nice cucumber dal is ready
so let me
ah look at this beautiful
Ahh
Ah this is my favorite dal and I used
to serve this dal in my restaurants
and especially when my friends come I
always make this dal and they all love
it so go ahead and experiment with this
tangy favorite and tell me how you like
it I hope you have enjoyed today's
session of learning to re-invent
traditional recipes to discover new
taste using our cucumber remember that
vahrehvah is all about inspiring others
to cook so please post your recipes and
cooking tips so others may benefit from
your great cooking thank you.
