Bhaja Mug Dal Diye Mach / Moong Dal Fish Curry

As much as I used to hate moong dal, I started loving them as soon as I discovered their beautiful nutty flavour and their potency to adapt with almost anything. It�s absolutely stunning. Even when you are not dry roasting them it gives a very earthy, raw yet subtle taste and flavour to the Dal.

 Just a little tempering with Bengali five spices and with an end note of a spoonful of butter �kancha muger dal� has become my go to dal recipe. You can never go wrong with it and its light texture makes it perfect for any day. But, dry roasted moong dal is different. Its nutty flavour developed from dry roasting makes that shy yellow lentil a dashing diva who flaunts her beauty seamlessly and shamelessly in every grand Bengali occasion.

Fry the marinated fish until golden.

Temper the reamining oil with whole garam masalas.

Add onions and cook until lightly golden.

Then add the minced ginger. garlic and chilli.

Cook until onions turn golden brown.

Pour the cooked dal and add the turmeric powder, cumin powder and coriander powder.

Add water (if required), fish and simmer for 10 minutes and then wait for the dal to thicken.

Finish off with garam masala powder and ghee.

Cooking Bhaja Muger Dal with fresh seasonal vegetables is always visually as well as soulfully pleasing, but it�s not the vegetables that had made us to look upon the moong dal the way we see it now...it�s the fish heads. And it�s needless to say that almost every Bengali loves this dish. But recently I read a recipe where the fishes were cooked with the lentils...and trust me...its beautiful. It�s like a very Bengali version of Daal Gosht...where we cook the fishes with moong dal, and I am loving it!!

Bhaja Mug Dal Diye Mach / Moong Dal Fish Curry

Serves 4

Ingredients:

� th cup of moong dal

4 thick pieces of fish

1 medium onion � chopped

4-5 fat cloves of garlic � minced

1 inch stick of ginger � minced

2 green chillies � minced

1 tsp turmeric powder

1 tsp cumin powder

1 tsp coriander powder

1 tsp garam masala powder

1 medium cinnamon stick

3 green cardamoms

3 cloves

1 bay leaf

2 tbsp oil

1 tbsp ghee

Salt

Method:

Wash the moong dal and drain the water. Keep aside for 10 minutes.

Then dry roast the moong dal on medium flame on a skillet or kadai until the lentils start to turn brown and you start to get a nutty flavour. Stir them continuously while dry roasting or else they will turn black and will taste bitter. It means your moong dals are already prepped, so now put off the flame and pour the dry roasted moong dal in a pressure cooker.

Add in 2 and � cups of water, salt, a little turmeric powder and cook the lentils on pressure until the cooker blows 4-6 whistles. Let the steam escape and then open the cover. Pour the cooked dal in a bowl and keep aside.

Marinate the fishes with turmeric powder and salt and keep aside for 12-15minutes.

In a kadai heat the oil and fry the fishes in them until they become lightly golden from outside. When done, take them out of the kadai and keep aside.

Temper the rest of the oil with cinnamon stick, green cardamoms, cloves and bay leaf.

Saut� them for half a minute to make the oil aromatic and then add the chopped onions into them.

Sprinkle some salt and sugar and cook the onions till they are lightly golden.

Now add the minced ginger, garlic and chilli and saut� the mixture for 2 minutes more or until the raw flavour of the garlic is gone.

Now pour in the cooked dal into the kadai and mix everything well.

If you feel the dal is too thick then add some water to make a thinner consistency.

Now add the cumin powder, coriander powder and mix them well with the dal.

Let the dal come to a boil and then add in the fried fishes to them.

Put cover and boil the dal for about 10 minutes more.

After 10 minutes open the cover and simmer the dal until it reaches your desired consistency.

Taste and adjust the seasonings.

Finally sprinkle the garam masala powder and ghee over them and put off the flame.

Give them a good stir and serve hot with plain hot rice.

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Lau Dal - Bengali Style Mung Dal with Sweet Bottle Gourd

Ma just said today that the temperature is slowly increasing now in Kolkata. March is already here and this means Poila Boisakh is just round the corner. My maternal uncle has jewelry shop in Kolkata and therefore Poila Boisakh is celebrated in their home rather in a big fat way. This is the day when every jewelry shopkeeper opens their new audit copy for that respective year, which in Bengali we call �Halkhata�. On this particular day people go to their family jeweler to open their account with a little money, which will be debited later as per their jewelry order in that year. Every shop owner gives away sweets and a calendar of Bengali year, which commences from that particular day, to each of his customers. My uncle�s shop is no different from all these rituals.

As a kid we used to go to the shop from the morning. Stayed all day long there eating sweets and sipping soft drinks and helping everyone by forwarding the boxes of sweets and calendars. When we got tired we sat on the shop with our uncle while he wrote the names of the customers who deposited money in a red hardcover copy. Lunch on that day used to be purely authentic Bengali and it was served on a large banana leaf. At first salt and lime wedges were given with fluffy Basmati rice, curly fried thin potato strips with peanuts and curry leaves and mung dal with fish heads. Then came some other fries, which were followed by Macher Kalia and Mutton Kasha. In the end there used to be chutney, payesh, crispy wafers and a big bowl of chilled mishit doi. I still can�t forget the taste of these dishes...and each of them used to be home cooked by my aunt and grandmother.

Temper the oil with dry red chillies, panch foron and hing / asafoetida.

Add the boiled bottle gourd.

Add the boiled mung / moog dal and water.

Add salt, sugar, and simmer till the desired consistency is achieved.

Finally add dry roasted ground cumin and put off the flame.

On this auspicious day, Macher Matha Die Moog Dal or Yellow Mung dal with fish head used to be huge hit. Mami cooked them with the finest, richest and oiliest fish head in the market. And when that thing went into with roasted mung dal and after all that mish - mash...the dal used to be instantly mouth watering. But since I have already shared the recipe of that dal...I thought today must be the recipe of rather simple dal which is very poupular during the summer days. A sweet, light and healthy option.

Lau dal is another variation of the dal / lentils category where the bottle gourd is cooked with yellow split lentils with minimum spices. This dal is rather sweeter than any other dal you can find...as the bottle gourd taste better with some sweetness in it. Some people cook this dal with whole garam masalas...but I like this simple variation more, which my mother used cook for us in every summer. Watery dal with medium chunks of lau / bottle gourd in it. But I like to grate them...and in that way the bottle gourd / lau gets blended with the mung / moog dal well.

Lau Dal � Bengali Style Mung Dal with Sweet Bottle Gourd

Serves 2-3

Ingredients:

2 small sweet bottle gourd / 1 medium sweet bottle gourd

1 cup of mung dal

1 tsp panch foron / Bengali five spices

2 dry red chillies

A pinch of hing / asafoetida

1 tsp ground dry roasted cumin seeds

1 tsp turmeric powder

1 tbsp oil

Salt & 2 tsp sugar

Method:

Dry roast the mung / moog dal in a flat pan until you start to to have its nutty smell. Be careful to not to burn them. Stop when the mung / moog dal starts to turn a little brownish.

Peel and grate the lau / sweet bottle gourd. Wash them well and discard the seeds (if any).

Put the lau / sweet bottle gourd in a saucepan with some salt and water. Boil them until the bottle gourd is cooked through. Then keep them aside. Do not drain the water.

Put the mung dal and grated lau / sweet bottle gourd in a pressure cooker with 2 and � cups of water, salt and 2 tsp oil.

Cook the dal on pressure until the cooker blows 4-5 whistles. Keep the cooker aside till all the steam vents out.

In a kadai heat the rest of the oil and temper it with dry red chillies, hing / asafoetida and panch foron / Bengali five spices.

Saut� them for 2 minutes and then add the boiled lauki / sweet bottle gourd and boiled mung dal / yellow split lentils. Also add in the kept aside boiled water of the lau /sweet bottle gourd. If required add in some more water to keep the consistency right. We need 2-2 and � cups of water to keep the right consistency of the dal right.

Add salt, sugar and stir them well.

Simmer on low flame till the dal reaches your desirable consistency.

Once the dal reaches its desirable consistency add the dry roasted ground cumin seeds.

Stir well and put off the flame.

Serve well with potato curry and plain Basmati rice.

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