Name: Tart Red Lentils with Tomatoes, Lime Juice & Scallions (Ahomya Bilahi Dal)
Yield: Makes 4 cups
Cuisine: India
Ingredients: ½ teaspoon ground turmeric; ¼ cup finely chopped fresh cilantro leaves and tender stems; 1 medium-size tomato, cored and cut into ½-inch pieces; 2 to 4 fresh green Thai, cayenne, or serrano chiles, to taste, stems removed, cut in half lengthwise (do not remove the seeds); Juice of 1 medium-size lime; 2 teaspoons Panch phoron; 2 tablespoons canola oil; 2 large cloves garlic; 1½ teaspoons coarse kosher or sea salt; 3 scallions (green tops and white bulbs), trimmed, cut crosswise into ¼-inch pieces; 1 cup skinned split brown lentils (salmon-colored in this form, masoor dal), picked over for stones (see Tip); 2 small red onions, 1 coarsely chopped, 1 cut in half lengthwise and thinly sliced; 2 lengthwise slices fresh ginger (each 2 inches long, 1 inch wide, and ⅛ inch thick)

Preparation info

Makes
4 cups

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

660 Curries

By Raghavan Iyer

Published 2008

About

Ahoms (the Mongols), warriors of Shan origin from Burma (now Myanmar), arrived in the northeast corner of India in the early 13th century and maintained a strong foothold there for 600 years, adopting Hinduism, the predominant religion of the area. Multiple attempts by the Moghuls to take over the northeast from the Ahoms failed each time. However, the ongoing attacks made the ruling party weak and the Ahoms succumbed to another group from Burma, who ruled Assam for four years before the Br