CHANA DAL & COCONUT COMBINATION

Coconut goes very well with chana dal and if you ever try it, you are gonna love it for sure. There’s nothing complex in the recipe and chana dal is cooked in a regular method with just an addition of coconut in it. And yes, this recipe is without onion and garlic.

SIMILAR RECIPE

A popular dal recipe from the land of bengal is a combination of chana dal and coconut & named as “Cholar Dal“. Made on special occasions like weddings and festivals which includes Durga Pooja, Cholar dal is considered as festive dal.

The ingredients used in the present recipe are different than cholar dal so we can’t name it the same but yes, the prime ingredient in both the preparations are chana dal and coconut.

You can call our recipe as an amalgamation of north and east. We have cooked the dal, exclusively, in a northern manner in which there’s no space for coconut and added coconut to bring a flavour of east in it.

WAYS TO ADD COCONUT

We have first roasted fresh grated coconut with oil and butter and then added to fully cooked dal. This way coconut didn’t loose it’s bite, though very little bite was there being coconut having grated. But you may add coconut by adopting any of the following ways :

1. Add grated coconut along with dal for pressure cooking, or

2. Add coconut after tomatoes are cooked and let coconut turn soft and mushy, or

3. Instead of grating, cut coconut into bite size pieces, roast in ghee, butter or oil and add while cooking.

4. If you are thinking adding of dessicated coconut, yes go ahead. But dessicated coconut is something as good as in powdered form so you are not gonna it’s feel in bite, though, it’s goodness will add on to your daal.

Step wise pictorial recipe

BOILING DAL

1. Wash dal and put in pressure cooker.
2. Add water, salt, fennel seeds ginger & oil.
3. Let the dal cook for 5 whistles.

ROASTING COCONUT

1. Take a pan and add oil & butter in it. Let butter melt.
2. Add coconut and roast it on low flame.
3. In 3 to 4 minutes, coconut will turn slightly golden. Remove from heat and keep aside.

COOKING DAL

1. Add oil in a pan. As we are using mustard oil, so it needs to be smoked first. You may take any oil you use in your regular cooking.
2. Add bay leaf, green chillies and cumin seeds and let them splutter.
3. Add tomatoes and salt. Keep yourself aware that you had added salt in pressure cooker too.
4. Cover the kadai with a lid and let tomatoes cook.
5. Add red chilli powder, turmeric and fennel powder. Mix.
6. Transfer dal from pressure cooker to kadai.
7. Also add roasted coconut over the dal. Mix.
8. Lastly add garam masala and coriander leaves.
9. Chana dal with coconut is ready. Serve hot with rice or roti.

NOTES

1. Oil is added in pressure cooker while boiling chana dal for a reason. It’s a very useful kitchen tip that if you add oil while pressure cooking any ingredient which has the tendency to release water in bulk out of cooker, that is prevented.
Chana dal always release much water out of pressure cooker through whistle exit. Add oil and see the results.

2. While roasting coconut, oil and butter is added. Actually butter gets burnt very easily and immediately, so to prevent the butter from burning, little addition of oil prior to adding butter is always helpful.