Recipes: Mixed Dal Tadka

I had been asked to increase my protein intake recently and was thinking on ways to increase the intake. Dals are a popular way in the Indian subcontinent to get protein into your diet daily. So I decided to make the simple dal tadka which is dal which is tempered and added multiple dals to increase the protein levels.

I made this with three seperate dals, but you can make it with just one dal or as many as you like.

This is a very simple recipe and is a real comfort food which can be made in minutes. It’s super yummy and is best eaten with rice or an Indian flatbread.

Mixed Dal Tadka

Ingredients:

  • 1/3 cup yellow moong dal
  • 1/3 cup toovar dal
  • 1/3 cup chana dal
  • 4 cloves
  • 4 cardamom pods
  • 1 tsp grated ginger
  • 1 tsp cumin seeds
  • 1/4 tsp asafoetida
  • 2-3 dried red chillies
  • 1 tbsp kasuri methi
  • 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
  • 1 tbsp ghee or oil
  • Salt to taste
  • 1-2 tsp lemon juice
  • Coriander leaves to garnish

Method:

  • Soak the dals in hot water for 15 minutes and then cook it with 1/4 tsp turmeric powder in a pressure cooker until it is completely cooked and loses its shape. Cool and then whisk the dal until it is homogenous. Keep aside.
  • If you are using the stovetop, cook it until you can mix all the dals into a paste. Keep aside.
  • In a smaller pan, heat the ghee and when warm, add the cumin seeds and let them splutter.Then add the cloves, cardamom and dried red chillies and stir well.
  • Pour the tempering into the whisked dal and let it come to a rolling boil. Season with salt and then crush the kasuri methi in the palms of your hands and sprinkle it over the dal.
  • Switch off the flame and pour the lemon juice and also the chopped coriander leaves.
  • Serve hot with rice or rotis.

2020 Week 01 Update

It’s 2020 and we are in a new year! Hope this year has been good to you so far.

We arrived back in Singapore after a wonderful holiday and its back to the usual for us. The children, for the first time in more than 10 years didn’t wake up early to go to school. We all felt a little weird that day when we saw school children going to school, but they stayed at home.

This weekend is also super free for us since they don’t have Hindi school or tuition for the first time in years. It feels slightly strange, but it’s our new reality and one that we are getting used to.

The children are also meeting friends and catching up on what happened in the last month they were away.

I have not yet started working on my business full-time, but am starting to do so. Somehow, it seems to me that I should start on a Monday, which is tomorrow!

Have a wonderful 2020 and a great week ahead!

In My Hands Today…

The Scatter Here Is Too Great – Bilal Tanweer


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A vivid and intricate novel-in-stories, The Scatter Here Is Too Great explores the complicated lives of ordinary people whose fates unexpectedly converge after a deadly bomb blast at the Karachi train station: an old communist poet; his wealthy, middle-aged son; a young man caught in an unpleasant, dead-end job; a girl who spins engaging tales to conceal her heartbreak; and a grief-stricken writer, who struggles to make sense of this devastating tragedy.

Bilal Tanweer reveals the pain, loneliness, and longing of these characters and celebrates the power of the written word to heal lives and communities plagued by violence. Elegantly weaving together different voices into a striking portrait of a city and its people, The Scatter Here Is Too Great is a tale as vibrant and varied in its characters, passions, and idiosyncrasies as the city itself.

A New Year Poem

Out with the old and in with the new
It’s a new year, a new decade, the old year we bid adieu

It’s that time of the year when we make resolutions
Whether we keep them or not, well, those are our actions

With positive thoughts and actions, let us start
This year let it be love and optimism in our heart

The New Year is a chance to press the restart button
A new decade, a year, a new day and a new dawn

In My Hands Today…

Tuscan Rose – Belinda Alexandra

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A mysterious stranger known as ‘The Wolf’ leaves an infant with the sisters of Santo Spirito. A tiny silver key hidden in her wrappings is the only clue to the child’s identity and so begins a story as intriguing and beautiful as the city of Florence itself.

When Rosa turns fifteen, she must leave the nuns who have raised her to become governess to the daughter of an aristocrat, the Marchese Scarfiotti, and his strange, frightening wife.

Their house is elegant but cursed, and Rosa – blessed with gifts beyond her considerable musical talent – is torn between a desire to discover her past connections to the Scarfiotti family and her fear of their repercussions.

Meanwhile, the hand of Fascism curls around beautiful Italy, threatening her citizens. In the face of a brutal war and the Nazi occupation of her country, will Rosa’s intelligence, intuition and her extraordinary capacity for love be enough to ensure her survival?