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Thursday, July 31, 2008

Hare lasun ki dal ~ Green Garlic Daal

Fresh green garlic from farm market


"How can we use them in cooking, where can I find recipes using these greens". I always talk to myself when I see them at my local farm marker. Yes, I am talking about green garlic.

Green Garlic is a spring culinary treat that does not receive as much fan fare as it deserves. This mild stage of garlic may be hard to find unless your have access to a farmers market that sells this delicacy (from March to July) or you garden and grow your own. If you are going to purchase green garlic look for green stalks that are not yellowing or blemished.

Prepare - Similar to leeks, green garlic stalks trap dirt and sand within the leaves. Rinse each stalk carefully. Once washed, the entire stalk can be used.

Store - If you are growing the garlic then harvest right before you use it. Green garlic can be stored in the refrigerator for up to three or four days. One stalk of green garlic is equivalent to one or two cloves of garlic.

I got hold of a bunch from my local farm market and used in the preparation of this dazzling dal. I used half the bunch of garlic greens for this recipe as the green garlic flavor is very overpowering.

Green Garlic Daal

Source : My own
Cuisine: South Indian Fusion
Prep time: 7 mins
Cooking time: 20 mins
Serves: 4 people
Ingredients:
1 C toor daal/ split-redgram lentil, uncooked
1 C or 10-12 sprigs of green garlic, chopped roughly
1 shallot, chopped
1 medium tomato, chopped finely
1/2 t turmeric powder/haldi/pasupu
1/2 t cayenne pepper/mirchi powder/red chillie powder
1 t cumin/jeera
1/2 t oil
salt as per taste
2 C water
for tempering/tadka/poppu:
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp urad dal/black gram lentil
5-6 curry leaves
a pinch of hing/asafeotida
1 T any cooking oil

Method:
  • Wash and soak dal for 30 minutes. Add one cup dal with half spoon of turmeric powder, cumin/jeera and half spoon of oil. with 2 cups of water, pressure cook for 4-5 whistles. Adding oil to dal will cook evenly and mash perfectly, cumin/jeera gives flavor to dal and turmeric gives the color.
  • Once the dal is cooked cool down add salt to it and mash dal with a masher or traditional pappu gidda.
  • If you do not have a pressure cooker, boil it in a large pot with two and half cups of water till the lentil is little overcooked.
  • While dal is cooking chop garlic greens, shallots and tomatoes.
  • In a kadai or small pot heat a tablespoon of cooking oil, add mustard seeds, let it splutter then add urad dal/black gram lentil, curry leaves and hing/asafeotida fry for a minute.
  • Add chopped onions and let them fry for another minute or till they turn transparent. Once you know that onions are cooked add finely chopped tomato and cook till the tomatoes looks mushy mushy and starts to leave oil from its sides.
  • Add cayenne pepper/red chilli powder and chopped green garlic. Cook for a minute or two.
  • Pour the entire mashed dal, stir well and let it simmer for 2 more minutes and you are done. Check for salt
  • Serve hot or cold with rice, rotis/phulkas/Indian flat bread.
While you start to chop garlic greens you will notice that the aroma fills the room already! Reduce the quantity of garlic greens if you are not a garlic lover. I used 1/2 a bunch around 10-12 sprigs.

More dals from my kitchen:
Baby Bok-Choy Pappu
Udipi Sambhar
Pedamma's Pappu charu


Sending this to Weekend Herb Blogging Kelly from Sounding My Barbaric Gulp a herb blogging phenomenon started by Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen. The new rules are in effect to this event, please check her blog for more details.

15 comments:

Cham said...

Great to know about green garlic. I never cooked it :) Looks delicious with dhal Padma!

Shreya said...

Anything green is my fav:-) especially leafy ones. TO be frank, I have never seen these in the local markets here. Will have to look out. Love the fact that garlic greens can be cooked .. great recipe, and thanks for the info:-)

Anonymous said...

This looks absolutely delicious. I love the look of your blog now. Very nice.

Anonymous said...

like the picture of the garlic green....

sra said...

Padma, hi, I didn't realise you were back to blogging! This is quite unusual. I'd love to try this!

Anonymous said...

Garlic greens dal - why, that sounds amazing. Actually I never looked for any garlic greens before.. will find some and make this dal.

Rajitha said...

yum!! i missed quite a lot of ur posts..everything looks delicious..as always!! great that u are back to blogging :)

Suganya said...

Green garlic.... Never seen them before. Looks great. Love the color of the dal. YUM!

bee said...

i love the flavour garlic greens impart to lentils. your pics are lovely.

Mallika said...

Lovely pictures. I've never heard of green garlic, so most interesting. Now to plant that garlic...

Usha said...

Thanks for the information about garlic greens,I have never used this in my cooking,your dhal looks really tempting though and makes me want to try this soon :)

Chef Jeena said...

This is just wonderful I love the taste of garlics greens and your dal looks truly amazing, great way to cook them. :-)

Argus Lou said...

Dear Padma, thanks for the dhal cooking tips. Will certainly incorporate garlic greens into my next lentil dish. Yours looks lovely. I'd like to dip Malaysian panfried bread (Roti Canai) into it.

Usha said...

Hi Padma,There is a surprise waiting for you at my blog,please check it out :)

Kalyn Denny said...

What a great sounding dish. I do appreciate the good instructions on the recipe, especially since I recently received some curry leaves as a gift and I'm wanting to experiment with using them. I haven't tried green garlic, but I do remember reading about it. Would love to try it.

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