Name: Mountain Dal
Yield: Serves 4
Cuisine: Nepal
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon mustard oil or vegetable oil 1 cup finely chopped onion; ½ teaspoon cumin seeds; One 1-inch piece cinnamon or cassia stick; 5 or 6 black peppercorns; 1 teaspoon coriander seeds; Seeds from 2 green cardamom pods; ½ teaspoon turmeric; 2 to 3 dried red chiles, stemmed; 1 teaspoon salt; 5 to 6 cups water; 1 cup mung dal (see headnote), washed and drained

Preparation info

Serves
4

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Mangoes & Curry Leaves

By Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid

Published 2005

About

In Nepal, even more than in South India, rice and lentils rule. Dal bhat (lentils and rice) is eaten every day, several times a day, over and over again. It commonly comes served with a vegetable dish (known as takari or sabzi), but it’s the rice and lentils that are essential. The rice is generally good, and there are hundreds of different versions of dal. Most, like the recipe here, are relatively simple and not overly spiced.

Most foreigners first encounter <