Dhokar Daalna with Jeera Rice

Labour of Love - Not so much on a weeknight

So aftter much searching, today I came across a good  Indian food blog, One Hot Stove, where Nupur, the author has shared some great recipes. Since I am planning to cook Indian Food for the next few months, I searched the blog for some interesting recipes and came across this Bengali favourite called "Dhokar Daalna".

The flavours sounded extremely yummy, what with coconut milk and all. So I decided to make it for tonight's dinner. Though Nupur did say that it was not a quick recipe, I decided to give it a try thinking it wouldn't take that long as the difficulty level was not very high.

So after coming home, I remembered to soak the chana daal, to give it enough time to soak before I started cooking a couple of hours later. It started out good, with me thinking, hmmmm this is coming along great. But soon I had a wake up call and a recipe, which I thought might take not more than an hour to cook, took almost 2 hours. And the end result - nothing to rave about.

Having said this, I must add that this was my very first time cooking this dish and thus did not know what to expect. However, next time onwards, it should take much less time.

Taste -wise, it was alright. The recipe called for coconut milk and I used the canned one which I had in the pantry. Maybe it might turn out tastier if I used fresh coconut milk instead. Apart from that, it is a good recipe to try out, if you are in a mood for something different. (Well, maybe not so much for my Bengali friends :-) ).

Here are the details

Today's menu : Dhokar Daalna with Jeera Rice
Cooking Time : 2 hours (But could be done in 45 Minutes with the tips that I have added)
Serves : 5
Kid-O-Meter : 2.5 

Dhokar Daalna
Ingredients :
For Daal Square

1 cup Chana Daal soaked in water for 2-3 hours
3-4 Green Chillies tspn Tamarind Pulp
3 cloves of Garlic
Salt to taste
Oil

For Curry

1 medium Onion
1 inch Ginger
Paste of One large Tomato
3/4 can Coconut Milk
1 tspn Red Chillie Powder
11/2 tspn Garam Masala

Directions:

Grind the daal, chillies, garlic and salt and make a thick paste. In a pan add some oil and cook the daal paste till it changes the color. Transfer the daal to a baking sheet and add very little water so that it becomes a bit sticky(Now this is a very important tip which was not mentioned on the other blog and hence took me way longer to cook that required. Once you cook the daal, it become very dry and its almost impossible to mold it into square. So add just a few drops of water so that the daal holds its shape). Next pat it down on the baking sheet and cut it into diamond shaped pieced. In another pan heat some oil and lightly fry the diamonds till they are golden brown on both the side

For the curry, make a paste of onions and ginger. In a pan heat one tbspn of oil and add the onion-ginger paste. Cook till golden brown. Next add the tomato paste and cook till you see soil oozing out. Add coconut milk and 1/2 glass of water, garam masala, chillie powder and salt. Bring it to a boil.


Jeera Rice

Ingredients :

2 cups rice
3 tspns Cumin Seeds\
Oil
Salt

Directions :

Cook the rice separately and keep it aside. In a pan, heat some oil. Add cumin seeds to the hot oil. Once the seeds crackle, add rice and salt.

To Serve

Place a soak the daal square in the curry and serve it over the jeera rice.