Bengali people have gotten into the bad habit of choking their food with oil. It doesn't have to be this way. My grandmothers were both from present day Bangladesh: one cooked with almost no oil, and the other one cooked with lots of oil. The former was frugal, the latter was extravagant.
And what are we all, today? LAZY.
Here's a low fat recipe. Measure your oil with a measuring spoon.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup musoor dal (red lentils) washed
1 tsp oil (mustard preferred)
1/2 tsp Kalo Jeera (kalonji) - NOT onion seeds
1-2 dried whole red chilli
1/4 tsp haldi (fresh or powder turmeric)
1 cup water
salt to taste
Method:
1. Heat the 1 tsp oil in a pan on medium heat. When it gets hot, add the Kalo Jeera and dried red chilli.
2. As it starts smoking, take the pan away from the heat, add haldi, dal.
3. Put the pan back on the flame, add water and bring to a boil. Boil for 20 minutes on medium low. You dal should be gently boiling. If you bring it to a rolling boil, then keep checking and adding water until the dal is completely cooked.
4. After the dal is cooked, add salt to taste.
5. Optional step: if you want, you can take a hand blender to the cooked dal, blend it a little till it's a nice thick smooth-ish dal and let it come to a boil once more.
Serve 'Daal Bhaath' by pouring Dal over fresh Rice.
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