Cooking abroad?every recipe carries substitutions New this weekSantula — the other everyday one Cooking abroad?every recipe carries substitutions New this weekSantula — the other everyday one Cooking abroad?every recipe carries substitutions New this weekSantula — the other everyday one Cooking abroad?every recipe carries substitutions New this weekSantula — the other everyday one
OdishaBasna
EN ଓଡ଼ି

Everyday

Dalma

ଡାଲମା

Dal and vegetables in one pot, no onion, no garlic. What most homes mean when they say dalma.

By Sasmita
Dalma
Prep time
15min
Cook time
35min
Total time
50min
Serves
4
Pot
3 litre pressure cooker, plus a small pan for the tempering

Ingredients

servings

4serves

Which version

The everyday one. Thick and mild — what most homes mean by dalma.

Onion and garlic

Temple and traditional style. The bhaja jeera and ghee stay in front — it tastes better this way.

Set how many you're feeding and everything below re-measures itself.

4servings

Cook for at least two. A single portion barely covers the bottom of the pot, so the water dries before the vegetables soften and the tempering has nothing to sit in.

Some things aren't sold outside India. Tell me where you're cooking and I'll swap them.

The dal

  • 1 cup

Vegetables — cut large

  • 1 cup
  • 1 cupKakharu (pumpkin)
  • 1 cupBaigana (brinjal)
  • ½ cup
  • ½Kancha kadali (raw banana)
  • 1Tomato

Tempering and finish

  • 1 tbsp
  • 2Dried red chillies
  • 1 tspCumin seeds
  • 2 tbsp
  • 1 tbspGhee
  • 1 inchGinger, grated
  • ½ tspTurmeric, plus salt

Method

  1. Everything in the pot

    Rinse the dal until the water runs clear. Put it in the cooker with all the vegetables, turmeric, grated ginger, salt and 3 cups water.

    At 4 servingsUse the 3 litre pot. The water should sit about a finger's width above the vegetables.

    Cut vegetables on the board, before they go in.

  2. Cook and let it settle

    Pressure cook, then rest until the pressure drops on its own. In an open pot, lid on, stirring twice.

    At 4 servings3 whistles, or 35–40 minutes in an open pot.
  3. Roast the bhaja jeera

    Dry roast the cumin and one dried chilli until the cumin turns several shades darker. Grind coarse. This is the whole flavour of the dish.

    Cumin and chilli mid-roast, dark and smoking slightly.

  4. Mash, but barely

    Open the cooker and mash gently, four or five strokes only. Dalma is not dal.

  5. Temper in ghee

    Heat the ghee, add panch phutana and the remaining chilli. When the mustard pops, pour it into the dal. Add the coconut and simmer.

    Ghee tempering going into the pot, mid-pour.

  6. Finish and rest

    Off the heat, stir in the bhaja jeera and a last half spoon of raw ghee. Rest before serving.

Where it goes wrong

Vegetables cut too smallThey dissolve and you get soup. Cut roughly an inch — larger than feels right.
Bhaja jeera added too earlyBoiled, it goes flat. It goes in after the flame is off, every time.
Onion and garlicLeave them out. The plainness is not an omission, it is the dish.

At home this was Tuesday, and Thursday, and most days my mother could not be bothered to plan. One pot, whatever vegetables were in the basket, and it was on the table by one o’clock.

Replace this with the real memory once you have cooked it.

Keeping and serving

Three days in the fridge. It thickens overnight — loosen with hot water, never cold, or the dal splits. It does not freeze well; the papaya turns.

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