Poi Saag Toor Dal: Basale Leaves and Yellow Lentils
12 Dec
I love cooking greens with toor dal – my go-to combination is spinach toor dal, mostly because spinach is easier to procure than other greens. When I do get my hands on poi saag (basale leaves/Malabar spinach), I alternate between cooking them in Bengali style or Andhra style – this poi saag toor dal recipe closely follows the Andhra style as in Sailu’s excellent blog.
This one’s a lighter, soupier dal than the original, with stronger notes of ginger. The bright green of basale infuses a lovely verdant hue to the dal. Hope you like it.
You Need:
- Toor dal – 1 small cup
- Basale leaves – 250 grams (~ 2 cups when plucked and chopped)
- Water – 3 cups
- Ginger – 1-inch stick
- Onion – 1/2 (~ 1 tablespoon when finely chopped)
- Green chilies – 2
- Tamarind – coin-sized ball
- Salt – to taste
- Turmeric powder – 1/2 teaspoon
For the tadka:
- Garlic – 4 cloves
- Dry red chilies – 1
- Mustard seeds – 1/2 teaspoon
- Oil – 2 teaspoons
How To Make Poi Saag Toor Dal:
1. Prep the ingredients
Wash toor dal well in several changes of water till the water runs clear. Soak the dal in 3 cups of water for 30 minutes.
Also soak the tamarind ball in half a cup of water for 30 minutes.
Pluck basale leaves out of the thick stalks. Discard the stalks and spotted/wilted leaves if any.
Chop the basale leaves roughly. Finely chop half an onion, ginger and green chilies.
Drain the soaked toor dal.
2. Boil the dal, basale leaves et al
In a pressure cooker, place the dal, chopped basale leaves, ginger, green chilies and onions. Pour in three cups of water. Throw in half a teaspoon of turmeric.
Lock the pressure cooker’s lid, and boil till the dal is done to mashable consistency. In an Indian-style pressure cooker, this will take a whistle on high heat + another whistle on low heat.
Let the pressure cooker cool naturally till its lid comes off.
Press the soaked tamarind to extract all its juices, discard the seeds and roughage if any. Pour the tamarind water into the dal.
Add salt, mix and boil for another two minutes. As the dal boils, prepare the tadka.
3. Do the tadka
In a tadka ladle, heat two teaspoons of oil.
When the oil is hot, add to it mustard seeds, chopped garlic and dry red chilies. Toast on low heat till the garlic turns golden.
Pour the tadka into the boiling dal, and take it off the heat.
Poi saag toor dal is ready.
Serve hot on the side with chapatis/rice and a vegetable side dish.
In the pic below: bottle gourd stew, poi saag toor dal, chapatis, fresh radish.
Notes:
- Looking for more recipes that use poi saag? Try pumpkin basale leaves curry.
- Want to try other exotic green leafy vegetables? Go for amaranth leaves, moringa leaves, bathua.
- Interested in other dal recipes? Check out gooseberry dal, chow chow dal, goji berry dal tadka.
Wow…I have seen this leaf in the vegetable market but never knew what it’s name or how to use it. I will try this recipe. Thank you so much for your helpful site.
Good to hear that Sagarika. Do try the recipe and let us know how it worked out :-)
Simple and wonderful recipe. More vegetables like pumpkin, potato can be added to make it more nutritious and tasty.
Thanks Kuina!
That is a leafy vegetable I didn’t know about – what a cute name “poi”!
@Kalyan: :D