Gujarati Dal Dhokli

Dear Foodies

Dal dhokli is a very traditional Gujarati dish. I don’t know when and how it was invented but it is brilliant. Dal dhokli is like mixing roti with dal, a one pot meal. It is high in protein as this dish is made using toor dal or lentils. It is a Gujarati comfort food made mostly for dinner especially during those cold nights. It is best eaten hot.

Many non-Gujarati friends asked me for the recipe of dal dhokli so here is my version. All families have slight variation as some makes stuff dhokli or with fresh methi/fenugreek leaves or just plain spicy dhokli. This is a simple recipe or the way my mom made it. I usually make it when I have leftover daal. It saves some time and delicious use of leftover. If you are making it from scratch, the only extra step is to boil toor dal/lentils which will take some more time but you can always pressure cook dal to save that time.

So let’s see how dal dhokli is prepared. This recipe serves 3 people.

Preparation Time: 15 minutes

Cooking Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

Ingredients to pressure cook
1/2 cup toor dal/split lentils
15-20 peanuts
3-4 dry kokum slice (optional)

Dough for dhokli
1 1/2 cup wheat floor
Salt to taste
2 tbsp oil
1/2 tsp turmeric powder

Other Ingredients
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
Small pinch of asafoetida
1 tbsp oil
1 tomato chopped
1 green chili
7-8 curry leaves
Salt to taste
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1 big lump of jaggery or 1 tbsp sugar
Coriander/Cilantro leaves for garnishing
Ghee or clarified butter
Procedure

1. In a pot, mix all the ingredients to pressure cook, wash dal and add 2 cups of water. Pressure cook until 4 whistles.

2. While dal is boiling, make dough using 1 1/2 cup wheat floor, salt, 2 tbsp oil, 1/2 tsp turmeric powder and water. Make slightly soft dough which can easily roll into roti. Divide the dough in 7-8 parts and make flat balls. Cover the balls and keep on side
.

3. When pressure cooker cools down, remove pot from the cooker. If you have added kokum before pressure cooking daal, remove it and leave on side.  Whisk boiled daal using hand blender or whisk. Add back kokum now.

4. Heat a pan, add 1 tbsp oil. Add mustard seeds and cumin seeds to the pan. When mustard seeds starts to pop, add asafoetida and chopped tomato. Cook tomato with little water until they are tender. Then add dal, green chili (slit from the middle), curry leaves, salt, turmeric powder and jaggery or sugar. Let dal cook on medium heat stirring occasionally.

5.  While dal is cooking, roll roti/dhokli from the dough balls made before. Roti/dhokli doesn’t need to be very thin. Keep rolled dhokli ready on the side.

6. When dal starts to boil, lower the heat. Take one rolled roti, make diagnal cuts and put one piece at a time in boiling dal. Stir the dal in between putting dhokli pieces or it will stick to each other. When all the dhokli pieces are in the dal, cover the pot with lid and let it cook on low to medium heat stirring frequently or dhokli will stick to the bottom of the pan. It will take around 15-20 minutes to completely cook dhokli. You can taste the dhokli to check if it is cooked. If it feels raw, cook for few more minutes.

7. When dal dhokli is ready, garnish with chopped coriander leaves and serve immediately. Make sure you pour 1 tsp of ghee/clarified butter before eating. Dal will soak all the sauce if you prepare way ahead of time. In that case keep some boiled dal on side and add it to dal dhokli before reheating. But it is best to cook just before the dinner and serve immediately. We like to serve pickle on the side. We also like to eat rice with dal dhokli.

This dish is prepared using minimal oil. You can add fenugreek leaves in dough to add extra flavour. You can avoid peanuts if someone is on peanut free diet. Avoid adding ghee if you are on vegan diet. If you don’t like sweet, you can skip jaggery or sugar. Customized this dish as per your taste and requirement, after all it you who is going to eat it.

TIP: Whenever I decide to make daal, I try to boil  double than what I need. Once it’s boiled, add all the ingredients and mix well. Divide in two, finish up cooking half daal for the same day and save the other half for mid-week. When you want to prepare 2nd time, just boil dal and add the tempering. It saves a lot of time during the week or you can make dal dhokli from the second portion. 

Let me know if you have any questions regarding the dish. Your suggestion is welcome.

Thank you for visiting my blog. Happy cooking!

You can check out other famous Gujarati recipes on my blog!

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