Dal makhani — black lentils and kidney beans simmered with butter and cream

进阶

Dal Makhani (Buttery Black Lentils)

Name: Dal Makhani (Buttery Black Lentils)
Total time: 3 h
Yield: 6
Cuisine: Punjabi
Ingredients: 200 g Whole black urad dal (sabut urad); 50 g Dried red kidney beans (rajma); 80 g Butter; 80 ml Heavy cream; 1 Onion, finely chopped; 3 Tomatoes, puréed; 2 tbsp Ginger–garlic paste; 1.5 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder; 1 tsp Garam masala; 1 tsp Kasuri methi (dried fenugreek leaves); 1 Bay leaf; 2 tbsp Ghee or neutral oil; Salt

Punjab's most luxurious lentils: whole black urad and kidney beans simmered for hours until they collapse into something as thick and glossy as melted chocolate, finished with butter and cream.

来源

食谱提供 Punjabi home kitchens · 🏺 传统 · North Indian (Punjabi) household cooking

Traditional dish — no single author — A Punjabi dish with no single owner, built on whole black urad dal and red kidney beans finished with butter and cream, as the reference describes. That reference also records a widely repeated claim that the dish was popularised at the Moti Mahal restaurant in Old Delhi by Kundan Lal Jaggi and Kundan Lal Gujral after Partition — we report that as a claim rather than treating either man as the recipe's author. The steps here are our own writing.

Background on Wikipedia ↗

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步骤

Rinse the urad dal and kidney beans together until the water runs almost clear, then cover them with plenty of cold water and leave them to soak overnight — at least 8 hours.
💡 Do not skip or shorten this. Unsoaked whole black lentils can boil for three hours and still have a chalky centre.
Drain, put the beans in a pot with 1.2 litres of fresh water and the bay leaf, and bring to a boil. Turn the heat low, half-cover, and simmer 60–90 minutes until a lentil mashes to nothing between your fingers.
💡 A pressure cooker does this in about 25 minutes after it comes to pressure, which is how most Indian homes actually cook it.
While the beans cook, heat the ghee in a frying pan over medium heat and fry the chopped onion 8–10 minutes, until it is properly golden brown at the edges rather than merely soft.
Add half the ginger–garlic paste and cook 1 minute until the raw sharpness is gone, then the puréed tomato and the chilli powder. Cook 10–12 minutes over medium heat until the mixture darkens and oil beads at the edges.
💡 Oil separating out is the signal the tomato is cooked, not a sign something went wrong. Stop before it and the dal tastes sour and thin.
Tip the tomato base into the pot of soft beans. Add salt now, stir, and let everything simmer together over the lowest heat for 45–60 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes so the bottom does not catch.
As it cooks, press some of the lentils against the side of the pot with the back of the spoon. The dal should slowly stop looking like beans in liquid and start looking like one thick, glossy sauce.
💡 This slow mashing — not cream — is what makes dal makhani creamy. Blending it instead turns it into gluey soup.
Stir in the butter a piece at a time, then the cream, then the garam masala. Crush the kasuri methi between your palms over the pot and stir it through.
Heat the remaining ginger–garlic paste in a spoonful of ghee until it sizzles, pour it over the dal, and serve without stirring it in completely. Eat with naan, roti or plain rice.
💡 Made a day ahead it is noticeably better — the starch keeps thickening overnight. Loosen with hot water when you reheat.

💡 小贴士

The three hours are the recipe. Restaurants keep dal makhani on the lowest possible flame overnight; at home, the longer and lower you go, the closer you get.
Salt only after the beans are soft. Salting hard beans early is the single most common reason a pot of dal never quite gets tender.
For a dairy-free version, use oil instead of ghee and a thick cashew paste (30 g cashews blended with water) instead of butter and cream. It is a different dish, but a genuinely good one.
If it tastes flat at the end, it is almost always salt or the kasuri methi, not more spice. Add a pinch of each before reaching for the garam masala.