Dal is to India what pasta is to Italy. Cheap to produce, highly nutritional, suitable for long storage & capable of being cooked in a basic pot on an open fire, dal has been providing nourishment to millions of Indians for millennia. It truly is a pan-Indian dish consumed by rich & poor alike. It is high protein & has practically no sugar
- in fact it is known as `poor man`s meat` in India
- hence doctors now include this as an essential item in a diet for diabetics. Dal is a genuinely impressive dish of infinite variety
- there are at least 50 recipes for this humble food. There are multiple ways of cooking it, wide-ranging seasonings are used & there are diverse supplements to serve with it. Over the centuries Indian cooks became innovative & with locally available ingredients they dished out dal to satisfy a regional palate. In the process they also invented new dishes using dal lentils such as kedgeree (khichari
- a risotto made with lentil), dosas (pancakes mixed with lentil flower), vadas (lentil cakes), dhokla (baked lentil cakes), papadam (dried lentil snack) & pakoras (fritters dipped in lentil batter).