One of my first introductions to Costco was Tasty Bite’s Madras Lentils, which was a staple lunch for me in high school. Years later, I encountered this dish (well, not this exact recipe) at a pop-up lunch counter at work, and decided to adapt it for my own kitchen.
My choice of beans here is actually a bit of a mistranslation; the recipes I read referred to black lentils, but this seems to be another term for black gram bean–a relative of mung beans, but not the same. Instead, I cook this as a three-pulse curry, including both mung beans and Western black lentils; I like the overlap in textures and styles.
This recipe is a loose adaptation of the version from Piping Pot Curry.
Ingredients
- ¾ cup black lentils
- ¼ cup green mung beans (green gram)
- ¼ cup kidney beans
- 3 cups water or stock, divided
- ½ cup heavy cream
- 1 large onion, diced
- 3 Tbsp garlic, minced
- 3 Tbsp ginger, minced
- 2 Tbsp tomato paste
- 2 Tbsp butter, divided
- 1 tsp cumin, whole
- 1 Tbsp garam masala
- ½ to 1 Tbsp Kashmiri chili powder
- ½ Tbsp ground coriander
- 1 tsp Turmeric powder
- Salt to taste
Preparation
- At least four hours before preparing this dish, rinse the pulses and set them up to soak. This can be done up to 12 hours in advance–but your beans might go ahead and sprout if you’re not too careful. The lentils can be included here, but it’s far from necessary. They’ll be tender in the final dish if they’re cooked from dry.
- Prepare your vegetables; in a bowl, combine the tomato paste with some water, stirring until the paste has hydrated into a thick sauce. This water should be subtracted from the 3 cups used for cooking the dish overall later; otherwise, your curry might be a little soupy.
- Set your instant pot to sauté on high, and add about a tablespoon of butter. Toast the cumin in the butter, then add the onions and cook until softened and translucent, a few minutes.
- Add the aromatics, sauté until fragrant, then add the remaining spices and bloom. If some garam masala has stuck to the bottom of the pan, don’t worry; adding the tomato sauce now gives you a chance to unstick anything that’s built up a fond on the bottom of the cooker bowl. I find that this is a great time to check for seasoning adjustments–remembering that the beans are still unseasoned, so the current flavor is stronger than the finished dish.
- Drain your bean mix and add it to the pot, then add the remainder of the 3 cups of water. Stir to ensure everything’s well combined, then close the pressure cooker, make sure the release is set to seal, and start the cooker on high for 30 minutes, or until the kidney beans will take to cook. I’ve found this can be anywhere up to 50 minutes.
- (Now is a great time to kick off the rice; in my rice cooker, it’s usually done right around when the instant pot finishes up.) Once the cooker stops, let it naturally release for at least 10 minutes; I let it go for over 20, and it was still highly pressurized when I popped the release.
- After release, leave the lid off for a few minutes and stir in half a cup of heavy cream. Restore the lid until you’re ready to serve, then optionally stir in a pat of cold butter to up the gloss of the dal.