As Karam Sethi pointed out recently in this magazine, the word "curry" doesn't really exist in India. It was the sauce-keen Brits who devised the catch-all term back in the days of empire, and introduced to the nation's store cupboards a vast new range of ingredients. Take dried beans and peas: visit the "world foods" section of a large supermarket these days and you can pretty much work your way through the whole alphabet – aduki beans, black-eyed beans, chickpeas, dal, edamame, flageolet beans, gram flour, haricot…
Knowing when to use one rather than another, however, is not quite as easy as ABC. The word "dal", for example, refers to any bean or pea (or seed) that has been split ("dalna" means "to split"), so chana dal, mung dal and urid dal, say, are the split versions of chickpeas, mung beans and urid beans. To confuse matters further, the dal can then be hulled or left as it is, so hulled urid dal chilka and mung dal chilka are quite distinct from their unhulled counterparts. On top of that, mung beans and urid dal are such close relatives that it's not always easy to tell them apart. Yes, mung beans (also known as green gram) are vibrant green and urid dal (also known as black lentils) are dull black, but once they've been hulled, both are creamy white. And as if all that weren't confusing enough, urid dal also go by the name of mungo.
Once you've established the status of your pea or bean, a whole world of stew, soup, porridge, pancake, fritter, salad and sweet options opens up to you. Little mung beans don't require pre-soaking; just cook in simmering water for 20-30 minutes. Like other beans whose skins have been left on, they hold their shape, and their relative blandness makes them idealvehicles for the flavours of whole spices such as cumin, caraway and fennel; fry in oil, then pour over the cooked beans the moment they are drained (this is known as tempering).
Once you can identify a range of dried peas and beans – and develop an understanding of their individual characteristics – you can then start bringing together different dal in thesame dish, and experimenting with their contrasting textures andcolours. Which, come to think of it, is what cooking isall about.
Mung and french bean salad
Serves four generously.
75ml white-wine vinegar
2 tbsp caster sugar
1 small red onion, peeled and thinly sliced into rounds
2 tsp pink peppercorns, lightlycrushed
200g dried green mung beans
500g french beans, trimmed
80ml olive oil
2 large cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
1 red chilli, trimmed and thinlysliced
3cm piece ginger, peeled andjulienned
2 tsp black mustard seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds
2 sprigs curry leaves
1 lime, zest shaved off in one strip
Salt
30g fresh coriander leaves, chopped
Put the vinegar and sugar in a small pan on a medium-high heat. Cook for two minutes, until the sugar has dissolved, then stir in the onion and peppercorns. Remove from the heat; set aside to cool for at least an hour.
Put the mung beans in a medium pan and cover generously with cold water. Bring to a boil, then simmer gently for 25 minutes, until the beans are soft but still retain a bite. Drain, refresh under cold water, transfer to a large bowl and set aside.
Bring a large pan of salted water to a boil. Add the french beans, blanch for four minutes, drain, refresh with cold water and set aside to dry.
Wipe dry the mung bean pan, then add the oil, garlic, chilli, ginger, seeds, curry leaves and lime zest. Put the pan on a medium-high heat and cook for four to five minutes, stirring occasionally, until the garlic is golden brown. Lift out and discard the lime zest, then pour everything else over the mung beans. Stir in ateaspoon of salt and two teaspoons of the pickling liquid. Strain the onion and peppercorns (discard any remaining liquid), and add to the salad, with the beans and coriander. Give it a gentle stir and serve.
Mung dal with okra and garam masala
The cream-like consistency of the dal, with the glutinous okra, make this a truly comforting dish. Serves two to four.
350g trimmed okra
1 tbsp olive oil
½ tsp dried chilli flakes
Salt
½ tsp ground turmeric
250g mung dal, rinsed well
30g ghee
2½ tsp cumin seeds
1 large onion, peeled and roughlychopped
2 large cloves garlic, peeled andcrushed
5cm piece ginger, peeled and finelydiced
2½ tsp garam masala
25g coriander, stalks and leaves, tied into a bunch, plus 1 tbsp chopped leaves, to serve
1 large tomato, peeled and diced
1 lime, cut into 4 wedges, to serve
Heat the oven to 200C/390F/gas mark 6. Spread out the okra on alarge 30cm x 30cm baking tray. Pour over the oil and sprinkle with the chilli flakes and half a teaspoon of salt. Mix together with your hands, then roast for 10-15 minutes, until cooked through and starting to colour. Remove and set aside.
Pour 800ml water into a medium pan, add the turmeric and three-quarters of a teaspoon of salt, bring to a boil, then add the mung dal. Leave to simmer for about 20 minutes, until the beans have softened and the liquid has the consistency of double cream, then remove the pan from the heat and set aside somewhere warm.
Melt the ghee in a large pan on amedium heat. Add the cumin seeds and toast for a minute, then add the onion and fry gently for 15minutes, stirring from time to time. Add the garlic, ginger, garam masala and coriander bundle, and fry for three minutes more. Add the tomato, aquarter-teaspoon of salt and 100ml cold water, and cook for another three minutes, until the tomato and onion are soft, and the mixture has thickened. Stir in the roast okra and cook for two minutes, just to heat through, then remove and discard the coriander.
Divide the dal between the plates. Top with the okra mix, sprinkle with chopped coriander and serve at once with a wedge of lime alongside.
White urid dal
A simple but vibrant dish that needs little more than chapati alongside. You can buy panch phoran from larger supermarkets and Indian food stores, or make it yourself by mixing together equal amounts of fenugreek, fennel, black mustard, nigella and cumin seeds. Serves four.
250g hulled urid dal (ie, the white one – see introduction), well rinsed
2 medium courgettes, trimmed and sliced lengthways with a vegetable peeler into 1-2mm-thick ribbons
3 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp panch phoran
3 whole dried red chillies
5-6 whole stalks fresh curry leaves
6cm piece ginger, peeled and finelygrated
½ tsp caster sugar
Salt
For the herb paste
1 small clove garlic, peeled andcrushed
20g coriander leaves, chopped
20g parsley leaves, chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
½ tbsp lime juice
Put all the herb paste ingredients in the small bowl of a food processor, add an eighth of a teaspoon of salt. blitz to a rough paste and set aside.
Put the dal in a medium pan and cover with a litre of water. Bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer for 25 minutes, stirring every few minutes and skimming off any froth, until the dal is almost cooked – it needs to have a fair bit of texture – and has absorbed most of the liquid. Add the courgette, cook for five minutes, then remove from the heat.
Put a medium frying pan on a medium-high heat and add the oil. Once it's hot, add the panch phoran, cook for 20 seconds, then add the chilli and curry leaves, and cook for a minute or two, until the leaves are crisp (take care not to burn them). Add the ginger and fry for a minute, then tip the whole lot over the dal, along with the sugar and a teaspoon of salt. Return the dal to a medium heat and cook, stirring, for up to two minutes, until thick. Remove and discard the dried chillies and curry leaf stems, and serve the dal with aspoonful of herb paste on top.
Yotam Ottolenghi is chef/patron of Ottolenghi and Nopi in London.
Follow Yotam on Twitter.
