Rich and Delicious: Saag and Dahl Makhani

In India, there is this lovely preparation called makahani, which refers to a butter based curry.  A curry is in essence, a dish made with a gravy, or sauce.

I worked on this recipe for a while.  My roommate Natasha gets her Dahl Makhani from the local Indian Restaurant, and I always love the taste of it, but it is so rich that when refrigerated, it becomes quite stiff, suggesting inordinate amounts of butter and cream.  But wow, it's delicious.  To make this curry, I adapted a recipe I found in 'The Art of Vegetarian Cooking'.  It's fairly straightforward but will require a special masala, or, spice blend.  For this dish, you need a makhani masala. I'm sure if you wanted to, you could make your own masala for this as there are recipes on line as well as in many Indian cookbooks.  You should be able to find this masala at any Indian market.  In the US, it comes in a small box.  I like the Shah brand.

I added the spinach (or saag) to this recipe for nutritional purposes and also for a textural balance and of course, for taste.  You can leave it out, but then bump up the amount of dahl you use to 3 1/2 cups.  This recipe makes a lot of dahl and will feed at least 10 people.  You can easily cut it in half, but it does freeze well. It has a lot of butter and cream, but I'm sure not as much as would be found in a restaurant, and you're probably not going to eat the whole pot in one day.  It's about balance....at least that's how I justify it to myself.  Eat well!


Dahl and Saag Makhani

3 cups of combined dried dahl (I like using kidney beans, chick peas and whole urad dahl) soaked overnight
4 T. Butter (or ghee)
3 onions, sliced thinly
2 T. Ginger, finely pasted
2 T. Garlic, finely pasted
½ cup makhani masala (you’ll need to purchase this at an Indian market)
1 can tomato paste (about 6 ounces)
2 c. water
1 lb. frozen spinach
1 ½ cups cream
4 T. Butter (or ghee)

Directions
Clean and soak the dahls for at least 8 hours (particularly if using chick peas).  Drain them, cover with at least 4 inches of water and cook them until done. I suggest you taste 5 beans.  If everyone is done, you're good.  If any are undercooked, keep cooking, adding water as necessary, but no salt at this point.

In a separate pot, cook onions in 4 T. butter until golden. Add ground ginger and garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add masala and cook 1 minute. Add tomato paste and cook 1 minute. Add water and cooked dahl and simmer 1 hour or more if you want, adding more water as needed. Add defrosted and drained spinach and cook for 10 minutes.  Finish with the last amounts of butter and cream. Add salt as needed. Heat through. Serve with basmati rice and chapatis.


Enjoy!