This is chickpeas with rice that I had for lunch the other day. Chickpea is called chana in Urdu (and Hindi) dal means split peas. Chickpea is one of the staple crops in Pakistan and it's available at every store that sells grains.
Dal, by the way, also includes split lentils and beans. But the most popular kind of dal is the dal chana (split chickpeas) and I think "dal" just means split chickpeas most of the time.
Here's how I made may dal chana dish. I only have one gas stove in my kitchen, and I'll write it the way I did it in my kitchen, okay? Here goes some Japano-Pakistani cooking, one stove style!
Ideally with a pressure cooker because it's quicker but you can also do it with a regular pot. People seem to use the pressure cooker a lot in Pakistan, and I guess it's partly because of chickpeas. They love their chana here, and chana takes a long time to be cooked. That is, if the chana is not split. For this dish, we're using split chickpeas and pressure cooker is just an option. It takes roughly as much as it takes to cook rice. In my case, 5 minutes with pressure cooker. That is, if you soak the dal for several hours before cooking.
"Masala" means spices, and yes, people loooove their masala over here, y'all. First, fry chopped garlic and carrots in a pan, and add some chili powder, garam masala powder and turmeric powder. Stir-fry them until the spices give off beautiful aroma.
Again, better with a pressure cooker but without it fine too. 5 minutes with pressure cooker, or 15 around minutes with a regular pot. I use Basmati because I'm in Pakistan, but any kind of rice is fine, of course. Anyone reading this is from Turkey? I loved eating Turkish rice while I was in Berlin. I loved it so much that I wrote about how I cooked it.
While you cook rice, mix the boiled dal with the masala oil you prepared, as well as some tomato chutney. Tomato chutney is like tomato sauce with a lot of spices. It's almost like tomato curry. The black dots you see in the top photo are nigella seeds. It's so neat to always have a jar of readymade tomato chutney in the fridge because it works so well as a condiment. (I'll list the ingredients of my tomato chutney down below.)
I don't think mixing dal with tomato chutney is a common thing to do, though. I probably just made it up on my own. Generally, chutney's are to be served on their own separately, not to be used as a seasoning like I did.
Squeeze some lemon juice into the dal mix. (This is a must for me because Pakistan is full of tasty lemons. But if lemons aren't that awesome where you live, skip this process.)
Prepare whatever vegetables you want to use for topping. In my case they were cucumber and green chili. The green chili was purely for the photo, by the way lol. It's sooooo hot and beyond my spice tolerance level, most of the time. These are two of the local's people's favorite salad veggies, but they also love chopped onions. Onions in Pakistan are red onions which taste great when you eat them raw.
You're done! I really can't find a way to describe the taste of dal rice. It's so unique. It is like curry because it's spicy. And it tastes gentle because it's peas. It's vegetarian and therefore easy on your tummy. I love this food especially when I make it like the way I do - with garlic and tomato chutney.
I'm originally from Japan and I live in Pakistan as a school teacher. Yup, I live on a tight budget and I cook for myself a lot because it saves money. Luckily, though, that also allows me to eat more healthily than otherwise, I think. Speaking of cost, 1kg of packaged chickpeas are priced around Rs 170 (roughly US$1.40) here. A 5kg pack of rice costs around Rs 800-900 (US$7.10). Food is incredibly cheap in Pakistan as long as you stick to the local produce.
