Here is an adaptation of a recipe that I found in Madhur Jaffrey’s memoir Climbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India. Madhur Jaffrey’s version is more feisty with its inclusion of chickpea flour, green chillies and onion. I kept mine simpler. Also her version called for cooking the greens in the pressure cooker. I opted to chop them and add to the dal when it was boiling.
Ingredients (makes a meal for two when eaten with rice)
2/3 cup green moong
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 – 3 dashes of asafoetida (hing)
1/4 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1 small bunch of fresh spinach, chopped fine
1 tablespoon dried fenugreek leaves (kasuri methi)
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
5 – 6 slivers of fresh ginger
1/4 teaspoon ghee
2 – 3 squeezes of lime juice
Method
Cook the moong with twice the quantity of water in the pressure cooker.
After cooked, open the lid of the pressure cooker. Add water to the cooked moong dal, bring to a slight boil.
Add the chopped spinach to the boiling moong dal.
Add salt to taste. Reduce the heat. Let it simmer.
In a small frying pan, warm ghee. Add cumin seeds, asafoetida, turmeric, ginger and fenugreek seeds. When the seeds are brownish-red in color, add the dried fenugreek leaves.
Take off the heat. Add the ghee-spice mixture to the dal.
Turn off the heat.
Add a couple of squeezes of lime juice.
Serve with steaming brown basmati rice and a side of lime pickle… Yum!