Gujarati Dhal

What:
- 1 cup red gram dhal
- 1 medium size ripe tomatoes; I like to quarter it to nice thick chunks.
- 1 green chillies
- little cut of ginger, chopped to small pieces or grate it.
- jaggery
- turmeric powder
- chili powder
- pinch of asafoetida
- cumin seeds
- mustard seeds
- small piece of cinammon stick
- curry leaves
- coriander leaves; unfortunately, I don't have any when I am making this, so I leave this out :)
- lime

How:
1. Soak the red gram for a while. Boil and cook it with pinch of salt. Once cooked, I use hand blender to mush it.
2. Put in green chillies, tomatoes, ginger, salt and jaggery.
3. While dhal is cooking, heat one teaspoon of oil, add cumin seeds, mustard seeds. Once it splutters, add cinnamon stick and curry leaves. Add on turmeric powder, red chili powder, asafoetida.
4. Carefully pour the hot oil and spices mixture to dhal mixture. Let it simmer for a while.
5. Right before serving, squeeze in some lime juice. Garnish with coriander leaves.

Vik's aunt like to add some shelled peanuts to it, which I find it quiet good! Vik likes to add a dollop of plain yogurt in his.

Instead of using pressure cooker to cook this dhal, I use regular medium sized pot. The traditional 'correct' way of making this dhal is actually using pressure cooker (less time consuming and no need of mushing it with hand blender), which I did for few years, until we moved across the country. And somehow, along with many other cooking tools, we didn't pack it with us. Sure I could have buy a new one. But, honestly I don't use it much and the less things my tiny kitchen has, the better. And it seems to work just fine, with the pot and hand blender. :)