I’ve been making the same dal for years. Seriously. Since college. That’s years. And then last night I was distracted and let the butter brown. Oh well. I was making it to round out leftovers, so I wasn’t going to waste good butter and just went ahead with the recipe.
I struck gold while mindlessly digging for dirt.
Brown Butter Dal
I serve this with lots of things, but it commonly shows up with rice and some quickly cooked greens as a pretty easy, quick, and highly nutritious meal when I’m not up for much cooking.
1 cup chana dal or yellow split peas
4 cups water
5 thick slices ginger
1/2 tsp. turmeric
1/2 tsp. salt
4 Tbsp. butter
1 to 2 tsp. cumin seeds
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 hot chile, thinly sliced or 1/4 tsp. cayenne (optional–seriously, sometimes you want something spicy and sometimes you don’t–this dal is good both ways)
- Put legumes, water, ginger, tumeric, and salt in a medium pot and bring to a boil. Lower heat to maintain a low but steady simmer. Put a lid on a bit askew and cook until legumes are tender, 20 to 30 minutes. Add up to another cup of water during cooking if the beans start to look dry. This dal is very flexible–you can add more water to make a soupy dal or cook off any extra liquid at the end to make a drier dal that can be eaten with a fork.
- Melt butter in a small frying pan over medium heat. Cook, swirling butter a bit to help it brown evenly, until butter turns light brown. Add cumin seeds and cook until they start to turn color, about 30 seconds. Add garlic and chile, if you’re using it, and cook about 1 minute.
- Stir brown butter and its many flavors into the dal. Fish out the ginger slices and serve hot or warm.
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